Online Consumer Behavior Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Online Consumer Behavior - assay ExampleIn the physical commercial world, the IT used for operations remains mostly in the background, unseeyn to the consumer. In e-commerce, however, the technology has been moved to the foreground and has become the store itself as a blade site. such web-based stores that use networks and Internet technology for communications and transactions amid various groups of stakeholders like businesses and consumers have lately also been called Net-enabled organizations (NEOs).A key difference between online and offline consumer air is that the online consumer is generally more powerful, demanding, and utilitarian in her shopping expeditions. As a result, customer loyalty on the vane is low overall although, as in the physical world, it is influenced by the availability of good, relevant content in an enjoyable context.Now that nearly all marketers have accepted that tapping a promotions full potential requires strategically integrating the online and offline components, considering the differences between online and offline consumer behavior becomes important.Some professionals contend that these differences ar enormous a common refrain, for example, is that where consumer behavior offline is passive, the Web is all some engagement. But what those observers really be comparing is consumer behavior relative to advertising media theyre comparing how consumers interact with ads on television as compared with ads on the Internet.Where online and offline promotions are concerned, the differences are far less pronounced. In many cases, a Web site is really just a digitized retail store. Still, the simple insight that the exact very(prenominal) triggers motivate transactions both on- and offline has tended to become obscured amid the excitement accompanying the rise of online marketing.Promotions that focus on connecting the dots between in-store and online merchandising have, in fact, proved highly successful. Pepsi enjoyed ru naway success with its E-Stuff promotion, which drove traffic from the store to the Web and back again. Simon Brand Ventures similarly fielded an online promotion that drove online shoppers to the companys malls, and mall shoppers to the Web.Thats not to say that anyone who knows everything about offline promotions gage consider himself armed and dangerous when it comes to online promotions. Some provoke, and sometimes surprising, trends and patterns have emerged with regard to online consumer behavior.One such interesting development concerns the profile of the online population According to a recent newspaper report, the fastest- growing consumer segment on the Web is blue-collar workers---up 52% since spring 2001. A separate and somewhat contradictory report has it that seniors actually are the fastest-growing segment, even though 87% of people over age 65 dont yet have Web access.Meanwhile, a third field of study found that online games, in particular, hold surprising appeal among older consumers. This survey discovered that 42% of frequent online garnets are over age 35, while just 30% are 18-to-35 years old.These groups have nowhere to go but up in terms of their online use still, their growing ranks among the wired population point to as-yet uncharted opportunities for promotion marketers, and their online behavior bears watching.Plenty of opportunity remains among the jr. set, to