Comparing three b2b or b2c web strategies :: essays research papers

I. Introduction The worldwide network of computers, called "Internet", provides opportunities for a company to do business in cyberspace. Organisations find it more and more important to represent them on the Internet to get more customers, to increase the public's awareness of the companies and their products, and to sell more of their products. However, corporate leaders are finding it difficult to keep up with fast-moving markets and the customer conditions that are the hallmark of the Internet. There are numerous and widely varying predictions of the potential of doing business via the Internet, including the increasing numbers of people with Internet access, of corporate Web sites, of Web spending by advertisers, and of total online shopping. Yet, confusion abounds concerning exactly what is happening, how much potential there really is, and what businesses should be doing to take advantage of it. The very nature of commerce on the Net can be baffling, even to the experienced marketer . Both businesses and consumers perceive many obstacles to successful online commerce. In order to successfully cultivate online market share, companies are compelled to design marketing strategies specifically for the information highway. I.A. Popularity of the Internet From its comparatively humble beginnings in the 1960s as a means for protecting US mainframe computer systems in the Cold War, to a 1970s link for scientists and academics to share data and research, the Internet has blossomed in the 1990s into the information age's curious marriage of the personal computer and citizens' band radio (Hof and Verity, 1994), instantaneously linking a user with the whole electronic world and providing the means to interact with that world. This explosive growth of the Internet, including commercial networks and services, has been accompanied by an astounding increase in the population of Internet users. The huge potential of customers and consumers has businesses scrambling to get on to the Web, with its low cost and broad reach. Millions of people worldwide can utilize the Web's affordable and easy access to view product, service and information offerings from an unknown number of potential entrepreneurs. (Chaffey et. al., 2003) Estimates say that the business side of the Internet is small today, but with untold billions in potential sales looming ahead. The prospect of millions of bright, well-educated, upwardly mobile people searching for some new outlet in which to spend their money has been too attractive for many businesses to ignore, in spite of slow initial momentum (Johnson, 1995).