Week # 4 - Consumer behavior, Market research and advertising.

Chapter's objectives:


- Describe the factors that influence consumer behavior online.
- Understand the decision-making process of consumer purchasing online.
- Describe how companies are building one-to-one relationships with customers.
- Explain how personalization is accomplished online.
- Discuss the issues of e-loyalty and e-trust in EC.
- Describe consumer market research in EC.
- Describe Internet marketing in B2B, including organizational buyer behavior.
- Describe the objectives of Web advertising and its characteristics.
- Describe the major advertising methods used on the Web.
- Describe various online advertising strategies and types of promotions.
- Describe permission marketing, ad management, localization, and other advertising-related issues.
- Understand the role of intelligent agents in consumer issues and advertising applications.

Building trust & E-Loyalty

Trust and customer loyalty are critical factors in the success of an e-business.
Basically, a company needs to gain the clients trust in order to have him purchase through their website. How do businesses do that ?
One way is to affiliate your business with a well known, trustworthy, business.
For example :
http://www.travelmania.com/
Travelmania.com is an Israeli tourist services website. This company is affiliated with El-Al airlines which is the formal Israeli airline that has been existing for many years. It is also affiliated with the Israel ministry of tourism. Such affiliations on the home page of travelmania, as well as verification of a secured order system - make all the difference.

In addition, customer satisfaction is needed in order to build trust and loyalty.
Satisfaction can be increased by conducting a market research and understanding consumer bavior, these actions allow businesses to personalize their products and websites, and make a client feel like they know him.

The story of 1800flowers.com
The success of 1800flowers.com was impacted by Data Mining. Data mining is the process of obtaining information about clients through their browsing and online shopping history, it allows businesses to understand consumer behavior and conduct an accurate market research . it allows businesses to understand what their customers desire, and which products will be most economically profitable for the company. Data mining can be used to facilitate customer service by personalization ; letting the client know that the business knows him and knows what are his preferred lines of business.
By using Data mining - 1800flowers.com created a competitive advantage in a very competitive world.

Check This URL and see how 1800flowers.com uses personalization as a competitive advantage.
http://ww21.1800flowers.com/welcome.do?cm_mmc=tagged-_-na-_-na-_-na&bannerBeacon=true