E-commerce Research Paper
- E-commerce Research Paper
Order Instructions:
There are few online clients who are just ready to connect with any online store through its sites and if customers determine an online store as untrustworthy and undependable, then economic impact of this factor on the overall business will be considerable. This is the reason why effective strategies should be made by the organisations in order build and keep up trust in consumers towards internet shopping. The purpose of this assignment is to analyse strategies in which trust is built and maintained by the organisations for the customers towards online shopping and how competitive advantage is obtained by the organisations by using e-commerce as a e marketing tool.
Assignment Task (25%)
You are required to determine and evaluate strategies that build and maintain trust in consumers towards online shopping so that they are attracted to purchase products and perform repeat purchase.
Your report should include the following:
1. Assessing in which way organisations obtain competitive advantage by utilizing e-commerce
2. Analyse in which way organisations attract customers through social media to buy their products online and to promote sales.
3. Critically analyse the strategies that organisations use to build and maintain trust in consumers towards internet shopping.
The Task is an individual report and must be presented in a report format (1,500 words). It is important that your report is properly structured.
Below is an indicative structure for your report:
Title Page
Table of Contents
A list of all the chapters, sections, headings, and sub-headings. Appendices and Figures should be provided as well as all page numbers as clearly as possible.
Executive Summary
Introduction
Conclusion
Reference List / Bibliography:Your report should include references to the appropriate e-commerce and marketing literature (textbooks, journals and websites).
PLEASE TAKE YOUR TIME AND READ MY REQUEST.
IT IS 1500 words and remember that this paper work is from United Kingdom not from America college,
SAMPLE ANSWER
ABSTRACT
Use of E-commerce is gaining popularity in the globalized world market. Most business organizations in the retail sector have factored in e-commerce in their business models and are gaining a lot of profits. E-commerce is gaining popularity because e-commerce model offers a wide variety of products, and the platform reaches more new markets and niche markets (Lee, 2012). E-commerce also utilizes the notion of an endless supply of goods enhancing business operations. This paper conceptualizes the notion that online stores are gaining popularity and that untrustworthiness and undependability can ruin the reputation of such organizations. The paper provides insights through analysis of strategies in which trust is built and maintained in the dynamic online market. On the same note, the paper provides ways in which organizations can gain a competitive advantage by adopting e-commerce in their marketing model.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction………………………………………………….…………..…….4
- Ways in which organizations obtain competitive advantage by using e-commerce………………………………………………………………………………….…4
- Social media as a marketing tool……………………………………………..….5
- Strategies that organizations use to build and maintain trust in consumers towards internet shopping……………………………………………………………….………………6
- Recommendation……………………………………………..……………………8
- Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………8
- References……..……………………………………………………………………10
Introduction
E-commerce as a marketing tool is gaining an advantage with as technology advances. Research shows that the online shopping tendency is increasing. And organizations adopting e-commerce to market their goods are enjoying increased sales due to; widespread of the internet across the globe, the convenience of online stores (Turban et al., 2015). And on the same note, increasing importance attached to online shopping by leading supermarkets such as Wal-Mart and LeShop. Most organizations no longer engage in price wars to win customers. Instead, they invest in knowledge, corporate social responsibilities, and a good customer relation defines well-positioned and profitable companies. For e-commerce to function directly and increase sales, it must be tied to customer relationship management (CRM). E-commerce provides a platform where the trading relationship is forged and maintained. Organization must develop shopping sites with unique selling propositions as a basis of differentiation from other organizations to gain competitive advantage. E-commerce refers to the transaction of business by a personal computer, mobile phones or other devices connected to a communication network. It is the realization of the whole value chain of a business process in an electronic environment, achieving the goal of buying and selling of products, services or information.
Ways in which organizations obtain competitive advantage by utilizing e-commerce
E-commerce enables organizations to expand its market base across the globe. Powerful e-commerce tools enable business organizations to reach buyers anywhere in the globe without the need to add staff and overhead costs in satellite business premises. However, to gain a competitive advantage business should understand cultural values for different people and market their products in a friendly manner without raising ethnic or racial differences (Huang & Benyoucef, 2013).
The depth and effectiveness of online product catalog also provide a competitive advantage to business organizations. Modern e-commerce tools enable organizations to merchandise goods tailored to customer needs. Customers can search online stores based on customer profile, histories and search terms to assess products. This personalization of goods enables enterprises to showcase on superior product knowledge and thus earn customer loyalty. Therefore, an organization should develop good and effective product catalogs that can feature products that online shoppers are interested.
Small business also obtain a competitive advantage by using e-commerce is that it allows such organization to offer differentiated experiences by specializing in specific market niches or segments. The use of information technology and e-commerce enables organizations to observe trends and develop strategies based on the behavior of customers and potential customers. This can be achieved using customer relationship management (CRM) and Business Intelligence (BI) (Kwahk et al., 2012).
Social Media as a Marketing Tool
Social media is a powerful tool that a business organization uses to market their products to attract customers to make online purchases and promote sales. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram can be used to generate website traffic. By sharing SEO blog posts, pictures and videos and other content from the company site makes social media click through and surf on your site. Once they are in your site marketers can inspire these visitors to make purchases, consult or even sign up for a mailing list hence increase the customer base and sales.
Social media is used to build brand and organization reputation. Organizations use social media as a brand building tool. A company can build organization reputation and brand by consistently creating great content revolving around the company’s advantages, values and benefits (Lee, 2014). Because online shopping is built upon trust, reliability and credibility, reputation, and brand recognition is vital to winning customers purchase products from a company website. By engaging customers in a creative way, organizations can build their brand based on core values. On the same note, the companies will be able to understand customer needs through informative conversation and hence help in attaining business sustainability.
Social media provides repeat exposure to company products and profile. Social media provides a company an opportunity to remind the customer over and over again about the products they offer this can increase sales made through online shopping dramatically. With effective social media marketing strategies, an organization can post informing photos, product reviews and videos about what they offer repeatedly to target customers (Close, 2012). Therefore, increasing chances of making sales and shorten the sales cycle dramatically.
Organizations can build authority using social media. Be as it may, social media helps new businesses establish authority and credibility in your field. Service based business use social media as a way to create presence and awareness for their services. Other ways that can be associated with social media as a means of creating competitive advantages and increase online shopping include: social media can enable an organization to land in huge contracts. Social media provides an opportunity for an organization to understand customer taste and preferences and also understand customer views to help in developing better products.
Strategies that organizations use to build and maintain trust with consumers towards internet shopping
According to Jonathan Lee (2014), trust is a strategic asset for a business organization that engages in e-commerce and online shopping. Business enterprises spent ages in building trust and therefore it is paramount that organizations grasp the consumer’s perceptions towards privacy and credibility. Organizations also need to develop native digital brands to build and maintain trust by connecting with customers in unique ways.
Building trust through transparency: transparency is critical for a company to establish its presence and win customer trust to purchase their products online. Companies should embrace transparency and use this during online conversations.
Accountability: Companies should engage with their customers openly through social media to ensure there is accountability. Companies should always prove themselves accountable for providing quality services, great products, and good customer service. The company can always use fun and simple engagement but ensuring that ethics and a good code of contact are always maintained.
Ensuring customer privacy: Organizations can build trust in consumers towards internet shopping by ensuring data privacy. Organizations should invest in customer confidence. Most customers are complacent in behavior when it comes to their privacy and breaching this trust can harm customer relationship.
Delivering what is promised: organizations should market exactly what they have instead of duping customers with catchy product review and promising quality while their products are substandard (Lee, 2014). Enterprises should ensure that they deliver to the customer what they promise during the advertisement campaign so as to win customers trust towards internet shopping. A discrepancy between what is promised in digital platforms and the product can hurt a band reputation.
Corporate Social Responsibility: engaging in CSR can help an organization to build trust with their customers. A Socially responsible company gains more sales because their clients know that they are not interested in profit only, but also giving back to the society (Lee, 2014).
Recommendations
The secret to online shopping is creating a credible brand and winning customer trust. Therefore, business organizations should invest in building strategies that can help in building a reputation and build customer trust. Organization should develop depth product catalog and innovative product reviews that provide detailed information about the products and services the company offers.
Business enterprises should also engage in spending a considerable amount of time and resources to invest in understanding customer needs. This can be achieved by marketing and communicating with prospective clients using social media. Developing marketing strategies and utilizing e-commerce tools amid using social media to build trust and accountability can increase online presence. Therefore, increasing online shopping hence increasing sales volume, sales cycle and help an organization achieve organizational goals and business sustainability.
Conclusion
E-commerce is one of the powerful marketing tools that can help the organization achieve success. Organization can use social media effectively to drive a potential customer towards the company site to make online purchases. However, caution should always be adopted to ensure that organization reputation is build to help in winning customer loyalty. Organization should ensure that they provide genuine products as promised through advertisements in social media to ensure that they win customer loyalty (Lee, 2014). On the same note, business organizations should ensure transparency and accountability in online business strategy to so as to win customers to make online purchases. Privacy with customers should also be maintained because customers prefer to keep confidentiality when making online purchases. And as such, business enterprises can enjoy thriving sales through online shopping.
References
Lee, I. (2012). Electronic commerce management for business activities and global enterprises: Competitive advantages. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference.
Lee, J. (2014, August 27). How Brands Build Trust in a Digital World. Retrieved July 3, 2015, from http://www.hugeinc.com/ideas/report/how-brands-build-trust-digitally
Turban, E., King, D., Lee, J. K., Liang, T. P., & Turban, D. C. (2015).Electronic commerce: A managerial and social networks perspective. Springer.
Huang, Z., & Benyoucef, M. (2013). From e-commerce to social commerce: A close look at design features. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 12(4), 246-259.
Kwahk, K. Y., & Ge, X. (2012, January). The effects of social media on E-commerce: A perspective of social impact theory. In System Science (HICSS), 2012 45th Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 1814-1823). IEEE.
Close, A. G. (Ed.). (2012). Online Consumer Behavior: Theory and Research in Social Media, Advertising and E-tail. Routledge.
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