Introduction E-marketing constitutes an aspect of electronic commerce that encompasses the areas of information management, customer service, public relations as well as sales (El-Ansary, Frost & Strauss 2005). The popularity e-marketing flourished with the widespread use of the Internet in homes. More than one-third of the consumers with computer and Internet connections in their homes have used the Internet to purchase items they find on the product and services sites. (Berrell 1995; Ammeen 1999) E-marketing previously emerged as a channel for sharing product information to potential customers. Since then, flexible Internet use caused a number of other marketing benefits to emerge. Today, companies offering advertising space have become common place coupled with the offer of a wide-array of products and services. (Schlueter 1998) Overall, returns on investments have grown even if bottom line has declined. This sort of e-marketing has developed to become the foundation of contemporary economic environment. (Kania 1999) With the wide access to this sales channel, companies only need to engage in online advertising to make their sites easy to find or access coupled with the development of websites able to entice and convince potential customers to make actual purchases (Dreze & Zufryden 1998; Kalyanam & McIntyre 1999). After a consumer has entered the site, it is the design and content of the site that determines the company's achievement of cost-efficiency (Gattuso 1994; Bowman 1997). A consideration of e-marketing holds a number of benefits such as a wide market reach coupled with the reduction of cost. However, there are also limitations such as the development of complexities in the firm-consumer relationship because of the difficulty in navigating the site or searching for specific information that the customer needs in decision-making. Security issues on the part of the business especially with the proliferation of viruses and hackers as well as on the part of consumers who are not willing to share account information online also intervene as considerations in the actual e-marketing endeavors. Benefits, limitations and security issues intervening in e-marketing means there is more this business activity beyond the promise of cost reduction and wide market reach. It is fitting to investigate e-marketing quality relative to the actual experiences of firms engaged in e-commerce. Literature Review Literature on e-marketing covers the business environment of companies engaged in e-marketing; the benefits, limitations and security issues arising in e-marketing; and the impact of these on the engagement of industries on e-marketing. Business Environment in E-Marketing A number of business models find link to e-marketing. One significant model is business-to-business (B2B) that refers to companies engaged in business transaction with other companies (Bussler 2003). Another important model is business-to-consumer (B2C) that pertains to the direct selling of companies to end-consumers (. At the onset of e-marketing, B2C first emerged as a more common business mode to be followed by the more complex system of B2B (Malala 2003). Still another important model is peer-to-peer (P2P) that pertains to individual's exchange of products or services among themselves such as file sharing of music (Miller 2001). Apart from these business models, there are various internet formats for selection by business firms (Fiore 2000). One is the name-your-price e-marketing that allows consumers to set a price for a product or service, set their price range for goods, or search for products and services within their price range (Levy & Weitz 1998). Another format is the find-best-price e-marketing that allows consumers to compare the prices of different online retail companies for the same product or services (Peppers & Rogers 1997). Still another format is the bid-to-buy format that allows consumers to compete with each other for the purchase of goods advertised on the retail sites. (Seybold 1998) The existence of these different e-marketing formats provides options to consumers but this also makes the process more complex. Benefits & Limitations in E-Marketing E-marketing has a number of benefits, with some connected to the other. First benefit of e-marketing is information sharing, which allows companies to provide a wide range of information they expect consumers to need in decision-making over final purchases (Sharipo & Varian 1999). Second benefit is convenience to both businesses and consumers because of a marketing channel that defies time or distance constraints (Szymanski, Bharadwaj & Varadarajan 1993; Underhill 2000). Third benefit is cost reduction for both companies and customers due to the savings incurred by business firms in traditional advertising and promotions and consumers in traveling to retail stores (Hagel & Armstrong 1997). Fourth benefit is wide market expansion opportunities for business firms to expand into the international market without engaging in joint venture or mergers (Kalb 2002). Fifth benefit is overall efficiency experienced by business firms, especially in monitoring their operations and performance because of easy organization, sharing and analysis of information from its e-marketing operations. This is also linked to the higher degree of accountability for the benefit of advertisers because of easy tracking of results. (El-Ansary, Frost & Strauss 2005) Although, e-marketing offer these benefits to consumers and the Internet has gained immense popularity, sales through e-marketing has not achieved a similar level of attractiveness as expected (Mahajan, Srinivasan & Wind 2002). This is expressed through the greater investments directed towards traditional advertising and promotional activities relative to online advertising pegged at 5 percent. The lower levels of home Internet use in developing countries also lessen the potential of e-marketing in the international market. (Kalb 2002) E-marketing also has a number of limitations mostly related to the application of e-marketing tools. First is the level of accessibility of the site to consumers with limited knowledge or experience of internet surfing and site navigation that disable willing consumers from selecting products and making purchases (Underhill 2000). Second is the limited sensory experience for consumers because of their inability to sample food products and clothes to aid in decision-making for the final purchase (Hagel & Armstrong 1997). Fourth limitation is the difficulty of providing customer service online relative to face-to-face customer service, where the personnel and customer can easily understand the issue and arrive at a solution amenable to both parties (El-Ansary, Frost & Strauss 2005). Fifth is the issue arising in payment methods since payments because of the sensitivity of account information that people are not willing to provide online without being given any strong security assurances from the company (Kollock 1998; Blackwell, Miniard & Engle 2000). Although these limitations exist in the application of e-marketing, the limited sensory experience has been off-set by the common offer for companies for easy return policy (Kalb 2002). Companies are trying to keep-up with these limitations by considering potential solutions to these limitations. Security Issues in E-Marketing Companies and consumers are both concerned over security issues, especially the maintenance of the privacy of consumers when they use their personal information online. This was spurred by the news that a number of e-marketing companies are selling the personal information of their customers without the consent of the latter. These companies have placed confidentiality clauses in their sites. Consumer information, helpful to the marketing strategy of many companies has become a market commodity. (Kollock 1998; Blackwell, Miniard & Engle 2000)This resulted to the hesitation on the part of consumers to make online purchases because of the fear of their accounts being hacked or being barraged with calls from sales companies (Bulkeley 2001). As a solution, encryption has been greatly utilized by online companies. Encryption transforms information into a crypt that cannot be easily accessed except through authorization managed by a program. However, greater protection involves higher cost so that in the long run the cost minimization may be at a level that is higher that originally expected when this issues has not yet been considered. (Blackwell, Miniard & Engle 2000) E-Marketing & Industries E-marketing has strongly impacted the retail, music and banking industries. In the case of the music industry, online purchases have become commonplace but this has resulted to uncontrolled file sharing and piracy. The music industry is currently developing ways of securing revenue generation by relying on the differentiation of music downloaded from the sites of music companies and from unauthorized file sharing websites. (Hall 2002) In relation to the banking industry, online transactions have become commonplace because of the rise in international business activities and online retailing. Online banking greatly appeal to different people because of convenience that this offers relative to the time and cost of visiting the bank during banking hours when overseas transactions defy time and distance limitations. (Petro 1990) With regard to the retail industry, the rise in product and service websites resulted to the ability of small, medium and large companies to offer their products to greater market segments. This resulted to the enhanced vibrancy of the retail industry due to a wider distribution channel. (Levy & Weitz 1998) The advertising industry has also grown through online advertisements because of the increasing shift from traditional to online advertising so that spending on online advertising and promotions has not started to surpass radio advertising Briggs, R & (Hollis 1997; Dreze & Zufryden 1998) Consumer Perceptions of E-Marketing Quality The perceptions and attitudes of consumers on e-marketing is a major factor that influences actual purchasing behavior. To study the perceptions of consumers on e-marketing quality, Jarvenpaa and Todd (1997) developed a model for consumer perceptions on internet shopping. Based on the model, there are a number of indicators of consumer perception categorized under the four classifications: 1) product value; 2) shopping experience; 3) service quality of the site; and 4) perceptions of risk in online shopping. Through the consideration of these factors, a business firm engaged in e-marketing will learn the perception of its target consumers over the quality of its website and e-marketing strategy reflected on the sales performance of the firm. In a different study conducted by Vellido, Lisboa and Meehan (2000), he identified nine factors linked to consumer perception of e-marketing. Out of these nine factors, risk perceptions has been identified in the study as the greatest factor determining the perception of consumers towards online shopping that directly translates into actual purchase. This means that the major differentiating factor of the people actually engaged in online shopping and the people preferring not to make online purchases is their perception of the risk involved in e-marketing. Other significant factors include control of shopping process, convenience of the shopping experience, affordability of products and services offered online, customer service, and accessibility and utility of the shopping website. In another study conducted by Jarvenpaa, Tractinsky and Vitale (2000), they tested a model of consumer attitude towards particular online stores based on the assumption that the reputation and size of the online store influence consumer trust towards the retailer. Results of the study showed that trust level had positive links with consumer attitudes to the online store and negative relationship with perceptions of risk towards engagement in online shopping. This means that the perception of consumers on the trustworthiness of the store based on its reputation and size determines the propensity of consumers to make actual purchase on the company website. Thus, in the study many factors explain the factors that determine or influence the perceptions of consumers over the quality of the firm's e-marketing activity. Research Problem The dynamics of benefits, limitations and security issues in the context of changing business models show the need to investigate perceptions of e-marketing quality amidst the disproving of the ideal conceptions of e-marketing because of varying and changing experiences of companies actually engaged in e-marketing. Investigation will proceed through the guidance of the following questions: 1. What are the factors that determine or influence customer perception of e-marketing quality? 2. How do consumers perceive the quality of products offered by the company on its website? 3. How do consumers perceive their online shopping experience? 4. How do consumers perceive service quality in online shopping? 5. How do consumers perceive risks in online shopping? 6. How do consumers perceive the reputation and size of the company engaged in online sales? Objectives The research seeks to validate the factors that determine the perceptions of consumers over e-marketing quality derived from pervious studies based on the assumption that these factors indicate the effectiveness of the e-marketing strategy of business firms by providing them with a means of evaluating their online marketing to optimize this marketing channel to enhance revenue performance and market base. Research Methodology Investigating perceptions of e-marketing quality involves the use of the survey method in data collection. Survey method comprises works in the derivation of descriptive and non-experimental data covering a specific phenomenon. This method is appropriate in studies seeking to determine and assess the characteristics and direction of influence of a variable or a number of variables to other variables intervening in the study. (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill 2003) Survey method supports the collection of accurate, unbiased, and generalized data (Fowler 1995). In using this method the advantages should exceed the disadvantages. First, the method is able to establish relationships between the variables but not the relational direction. This issue may be addressed in the study by the application of both quantitative and qualitative approaches in data collection and analysis. Second, the reliance of the survey method on self-reported information indicating dependence on the truthfulness of respondents opening the risk of getting unreliable data. The risk is met through carefully developed data collection tools. Third, the time-consumer research planning required by the method coincides with the time allowance for the completion of the research. (Salant & Dillman 1994) Data Collection Survey will be conducted through a survey questionnaire [See Appendix] that involves both Likert-type and open ended questions to maximize information collection. The target population comprise of Findings & Analysis Data will be presented and organized into numerical and descriptive tabulations together with the identification of variable relationships. Analysis will be done through the determination of patterns and themes to elicit implications to the research problem. Deviations from the previous patterns and themes coupled with the factors explaining atypical responses will also be determined. Statistical tools for analysis include the derivation of means, standard deviation, factor analysis and ANOVA to measure variable relationships and variances. Conclusion Studying the perception of consumers on the quality of e-marketing is important for business firms to determine the viability of their online shopping offers. Based on the review of literature, there are a number of concepts and models that guide the present study. These also serve as theories that the research would try to verify, in Appendix Questionnaire ________________________________________________________________________ Name: Marital Status: Age: Employment Status: Gender: Income Level: ________________________________________________________________________ Please rate the scenarios provided below.
Please answer the questions below.
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Introduction Today's market is characterised by highly competitive organisations which are all vying for consumer's loyalty. Firms are faced with the challenge to maintain their own competitive edge to be able to survive and be successful. Strategies are carefully planned and executed to gain the ultimate goal of all: company growth. However, external factors are not the only elements which influence growth. There are also internal factors, components working within the organisation which shape the direction of the company. Along with the changing business world, customers change as well, becoming more demanding and knowledgeable than before. In turn, company management had shifted their focus on their clients or customers so as to stay successfully in business. This transition meant that organisations have to completely reformulate their conventional business aims and purposes from being process-focused to customer-centred. Hence, in order to bring out exceptional custome
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With electronic commerce growing so rapidly, businesses need to examine critical elements that could influence users' perceptions of business-to-business and business-to-consumer electronic commerce. http://www.infyecommercesolution.com/
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