E-Marketing

E-Marketing

The revolution and the development of the Internet and the World Wide Web (www) in the 1990s as a means for global sharing of information has opened up an opportunity for business organizations as well as a whole range of new possibilities in marketing practice. The maturity of the internet in the 1990s gave birth to new a term that is generally known and acceptable depending on different uses of individuals and different business organizational transaction. This emergence gained momentum and became a concept for electronic business and marketers. One of the common terms used is the electronic commerce which is often referred to as e-commerce.

Yang, B., & Lester, D. (2005) argue that the internet together with the implementation of innovative business practices plays a fundamental role in the development of e-commerce. Zhang (2005) identified the framework of ecommerce as technologically based means to business transformation where the principal aspects of e-commerce fall into five activity domains, namely, commerce, collaboration, communication, connection, and computation. This identifies how important the internet is to business strategy and also a strategy to create a sustainable competitive advantage over rival companies (Yang, 2007).

Recent research conducted in 2009 by Miniwatts Marketing Group for internetworldstats.com shows that the internet usage has increased phenomenally particularly in the business world. European Union has experienced a 239.9 percent increase in the use of internet from 2000 to 2009, with Ireland experiencing a user growth of 261.0 percent during the same period. With the Irish population of just over 4million (CSO), internetworldstats.com indicates Irish internet users to be 2,830,100, representing over half of the Irish population. This shows the internet is a wonderful medium for companies to reach potential customers and existing clients.

From the current academic and trade literature is replete with the glowing and rosy predictions for the concept of E-marketing and online shopping, including the transactions at business to business level and business to consumer level as well, which is commonly referred as E-retailing. Predictions and models for this kind of commerce are based usually over some sort of internet technology assumptions and broadband adoption, World Wide Web growth, retail portal usage and so on (Park, 2005).

Shopping Motivations

The motivation for shopping in reference to the needs and wants of customers is associated with the outlet choices. There have been numerous researches concerned with the customer motivation for shopping and various factors that have been influencing customer's buying and shopping behaviors.

There could be several factors contributing towards the motivation of customers. Taking in to account the significant growth in online purchasing and web outlets, understanding the reasons behind the choice of consumers to make an online purchase is critically dependent over the emergence of retail channels and distribution channels modifications (Garbarino, 2004). As a result, it is essential to examine the published literature associated with the motivations behind the shopping behavior of consumers in the context of online auctions and shopping. For the sake of gaining a better understanding of motivations behind the consumer E-marketing and online ...