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

Online Consumer Behavior - Essay ExampleIn the somatic commercial world, the IT used for operations carcass mostly in the background, invisible to the consumer. In e-commerce, however, the technology has been moved to the foreground and has become the store itself as a Web site. Such Web-based stores that use networks and profits technology for communications and legal proceeding between various groups of stakeholders like businesses and consumers thrust recently also been called Net-enabled organizations (NEOs).A key difference between online and offline consumer behavior is that the online consumer is mostly more powerful, demanding, and utilitarian in her shopping expeditions. As a result, customer loyalty on the Web 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 are enormous a common refrain, for example, is that where consumer behavior offline is passive, the Web is all about engagement. But what those observers truly are 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 slight pronounced. In many cases, a Web site is really just a digitized retail store. Still, the simple insight that the exact same 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 runaw ay success with its E-Stuff promotion, which pack 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 can consider himself build up and dangerous when it comes to online promotions. Some interesting, and sometimes affect, 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 report 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 survey found that online games, in particular, hold surprising appeal among older c onsumers. 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. spate of opportunity remains among the younger set, to