Essay on Customer Empowerment

According to MarketLine, the world online retail market expanded by almost 18% in 2010 and is predicted to reach close to $435 billion in sales. The market is expected to reach a 90% growth by 2015 and exceed $827 billion in sales. Listed in an article “Ecommerce Growth Statistics”, the average amount spent by each consumer is expected to rise from $1,207 per year to $1,738 per person by 2016. That is a significant increase. That shows that people prefer to shop online than going to the actual store in today’s society. Shoppers will spend on an average of $327 billion online shopping in 2016, which is about 45% from $226 billion in 2012. It is very evident that consumers will drive ecommerce into the future; especially e-retail. In just a few years, purchases online will be more profitable than ever, with others products and services available to purchase such as mobile and social allowing consumers to shop to their convenience. For retailers and

I decided to use the FTI consulting Inc firm to help you understand how this FTI consulting Inc helps other businesses and small owners to create a successful online retail marketing business. The FTI will illustrate through this research how to successfully market your product online. Keep in mind, that FTI is one of many firms that can help you to make your online store a success story and that there are many ways to go about marketing your company online. I choose this FTI consulting firm, because they know how to navigate a company’s product into the online marketing world. They will help us to understand how to not only get your successful product online but how to expand your company to other medias online. What I like about this FTI firm is that they will illustrate the advantages and disadvantages as well showing you what you need to do to become one of the successful company’s online. The greatest part of online retail store is that anyone can become an online retail owner if they follow the necessary steps outline in this report and to use the FTI consulting firms’ strategies to become successful in operating an online retail store. In addition, the BigCommerce firm owned by Mitchell Harper, and Eddie Manchaalani will help anyone who is serious about starting an online company regardless of your experience and knowledge of business background.

1. Issue: Seventy five percent of online customers don’t buy online, somewhere in the consumer buying process they decide not to make the purchase online.

The new advances in technology allow businesses to reach different customer bases. This includes buying and selling products over the Internet. The online shopping process is considered e-commerce. E-commerce is made up of different behaviors but for the purpose of this discussion the three discussed are consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-business (B2B), and consumer-to-business (C2B). The different behaviors have different mediums to reach their targeted audience. The message for each behavior persuades a particular audience to purchase a product using that particular medium. Consumers and businesses look to the web for cost-effective ways to sell and buy products.

Clemons and Joshua S. Wilson. Both are in the faculty at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Specifically, Clemons is a professor of operations and information management. His education includes an S.B. in physics from MIT, an M.S. and a Ph.D. in operations research from Cornell University (Clemons & Wilson, 2015). For the past 30 years, his research has revolved around the systematic study of the transformational effects of information on the strategy and practice of business (Clemons & Wilson, 2015). Clemons was also among the first scholars to do studies on online global securities trading, business process outsourcing and the effect of information on product proliferation and the transformation of consumer behavior in these new marketplaces (Clemons & Wilson, 2015). More recently, he has been studying privacy and the challenges of applying current antitrust laws to online business models (Clemons & Wilson, 2015). The second author is Joshua Wilson who is a research coordinator for Eric Clemons in the Department of Operations and Information Management at the Wharton School (Clemons & Wilson, 2015). His research and teaching interests are made up of information economics, strategic uses of information systems, online privacy and the analysis of mandatory participation third-party payer markets (Clemons & Wilson, 2015). Also, he received his B.A. in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of

Online commerce was introduced to consumers in the mid-1990’s, and in the years since, it has grown exponentially. It started out virtually nonexistent and has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Nearly every retail sector has entered online commerce; clothing, electronics, home, health and grooming items, even food and groceries are starting to gain traction online. Online commerce sites rival traditional brick and mortar stores such as Walmart and Target, as well as other big-box stores. As online retailers such as Amazon continue to expand, many brick and mortar stores have been making their way online, indicative of an increasing movement towards online commerce. With more than 80% of the online population having made an online

Many people are moving from physical stores to purchasing merchandise and services on the Internet. Today,

The Internet has changed the way we do virtually everything, including the way we shop. However, shopping is not the only thing that has changed. In the last decade we have changed the way, we apply for loans, study, and even plan a vacation. Doing any of these things would have been impossible a few decades ago. At present, online banking, paying bills, ordering new services, and shopping online have become part of our daily lives. Traditional brick-and-mortar stores have been around much longer than online stores, but we cannot deny that online shopping is giving the traditional stores competition. Many consumers still choose to shop at regular brick-and-mortar stores because they like to see and

According to Turban and King (2003), internet technology renders retailers an additional channel for branding, transactions and customer relationship management, the adaptation of which may drive down retailers’ transaction costs, and ensuring faster and higher quality of customer interactions, resulting in enlarging the existing markets and consumer base. M&S realizes this and have tried to sell clothing via high street stores as well as via internet though they have experienced cost cutting, rationalisation and management changes in order to revive their business in recent years. Internet technology might enable sustainable competitive advantage, but problems remain on how to physically organize their online retail operations.

A steady increase in the popularity of online sales has caused a major push towards e-commerce in the retail industry.

It is imperative to satisfy customers and give them an amazing experience at the company. While it cost less to sell to existing customers and companies can increase profit by selling to the same customers; if customers are satisfied, there is more chance they will come back for more services or products. Satisfied customers are a free marketing for the company. However, it is the opposite if customers are dissatisfied. Dissatisfied customer will tell 8 to 10 people about his or her experience (O’Brien, A & Marakas, G. 2004). If by any reason, representatives see that the customer is not satisfy, they should act fast and fix the problem. Furthermore, there is more chance for sale representatives to sell to an existing customer that to a new customer. A good strategy for customer retention is to reward good customers. Companies can easily do

The idea behind this study is of great significance because e-commerce (online shopping) has grown tremendously since the turn of the century. It has shaped the way people do shopping for the most part.

The traditional retail market has been transformed by technological advances. The internet today has allowed consumers to purchase various products from home ranging from apparel to groceries. The online shopping market has grown significantly within the past decade, leading to many online e-commerce startups such as Amazon, eBay, and mobile start-ups such as Instacart. While e-commerce provides convenience for shopping, it has created major disruption to the traditional shopping industries. Traditional retailers have since faced bankruptcy due to their inability to compete with such start-ups. The traditional American toy store, Toys R Us, announced its state of bankruptcy just last month due to a significant decline in sales. More and more consumers are turning to online giants such as Amazon to purchase daily items as a result of convenience. According to the Washington Post, Toys R Us is just one of more than 300 retailers to file for bankruptcy this year, as Americans ditch the shopping mall in favor of their laptops, smartphones, and tablets (Bhattarai, 2017). Shopping which used to require walking or a vehicle trip to stores is no longer required for consumers with online shopping. Online shopping has appealed to consumers worldwide by encompassing the business aspect of service convenience which constitute saving time and/or effort (Jiang, Yang, and Jun, 2012). For consumers whom have busy lives and those whom are physically disabled, online shopping is a positive

Many researchers show that consumers perceive a high level of risk associated with Internet shopping that is likely to discourage them from engaging in online purchases. Typically, the perceived risk is greater for decisions requiring higher involvement, greater uncertainty, or greater monetary outflow (Grewal, Munger, Iyer, & Levy, 2003). Moreover, prior research suggests that consumers have different risk perceptions related to types of shopping modes (Huang, Schrank, & Dubinsky, 2004). As an example, consumers perceived to be in higher risk when purchasing products and services online than when purchasing products and services through the conventional methods. In the online shopping medium, a level of perceived risk may be higher because consumers have a lesser understanding or unfamiliar with the online retail process. Since online shopping is relatively new and most of the consumers have little experience with it, it is quite a challenge to many consumers and online retailers as well. Generally, consumers may resist and be hesitant to provide personal information in a non-face-to-face interaction, especially on information that is related to financial matters and credit cards because they fear that those who get the information may abuse it or do fraudulent acts which may jeopardise the consumer (So & Scull, 2002). Privacy concerns about the Internet can be divided into four areas (George,

Despite the rapid growth of E-commerce sites, 43 percent of the them fails, and the difference between the success and the failure is consumer experience, according to Ecommercetimes.com. The Dotcom Survival Guide reported there is still one resource left untapped that can save dotcoms from failure. It's the one resource that historically is most ignored in favor of ads, press, and flashy features yet it's the one resource that can lead dotcoms to survival. That resource is customers. Customers can provide the revenues needed to attain profitability. Customers can give the word-of-mouth marketing to drive traffic. Customers can give the feedback needed to continually improve the website.