Page 202 - Electronic Commerce

Marketing on the Web

Many other online businesses use a similar product-based marketing strategy. Sears,a
company that sold its products through catalogs and later in physical stores for many
years before adding online sales, organizes its Web site using a product-based structure.
Many companies that used print catalogs in the past organized them by product category,
and this design theme has carried over into their Web sites.
Many retailers that began as catalog-based businesses organize their Web sites from 177
an internal viewpoint—that is, according to the way that they arranged their products
on store shelves or printed catalog pages. If customers arrive at these Web sites looking
for a specific type of product, this approach works well. However, customers who are
shopping to fulfill a specific need, such as redecorating a room or choosing a graduation
gift rather than to find a specific product, might not find these Web sites to be efficient
to use.
Marketing consultants often advise retailers to design their Web sites while imagining
themselves as customers and creating enabling experiences that meet their needs.
Sometimes this requires a Web site design that offers alternative shopping paths. The next
section describes this customer-based approach to Web site design.

Customer-Based Marketing Strategies
In Chapter 3, you learned that the Web creates an environment that allows buyers and
sellers to engage in complex communications modes. The communication structures on
the Web can become much more complex than those in traditional mass media outlets
such as broadcast and print advertising. When a company takes its business to the Web, it
can create a Web site that is flexible enough to meet the needs of many different users.
Instead of thinking of their Web sites as collections of products, companies can build their
sites to meet the differing needs of various types of customers. For example, an online
florist’s Web site could allow customers to specify an arrangement that includes specific
flowers or colors (satisfying customers with a desire for a specific product), yet provide a
separate shopping path for customers who want to buy an arrangement for a specific
occasion (birthday, anniversary, Mother’s Day, and so on). Similarly, toy sites provide
users with filtering options so they can select price range, type of toy, recipient age range,
cost, and so on. An approach to Web site design that accommodates the differing needs of
various types of customers is called a customer-based marketing strategy.
A good first step in building a customer-based marketing strategy is to identify groups
of customers who share common characteristics. Creating a Web site that acknowledges
those groups and treats each differently can make the site more accessible and useful to
each group. This is often difficult for organizations to accomplish because most managers,
quite naturally, think about their Web sites as models of their activities, and they view
those activities from their own internal perspective. For example, early university Web
sites were often organized around the internal elements of the school (such as
departments, colleges, and programs) in an implementation of their own internal
perspective. Today, most university home pages include links to separate sections of
the Web site designed for specific stakeholders, such as current students, prospective
students, parents of students, potential donors, and faculty. This construction reflects the
external perspective of each different user group that might use the Web site.

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