Fully-operational commercial website using contemporary web design techniques and smart mobile device compliance – Abstract
Effective strategic management requires that organizations monitor their environment and adapt to its changes. During the last few decades, a key environmental change has been the growth of information technologies: personal computers, specialized television (cable, satellite, hundreds of channels), the Internet, the World Wide Web, and personal communication devices (hand held computers, enhanced cell phones). These emerging technologies have helped create an “eCommerce market place”.
An important element of consumer-based capitalism is a knowledgeable consumer. The consumer needs information to make rational economic choices among buying alternatives. Typically, the seller has more information than the buyer does about a product’s origin, characteristics, capabilities, limitations and value. Naturally, sellers present information most favourably to induce buyers to purchase their product. But, as more information becomes available to buyers, the sellers’ advantage decreases.
At the same time, the uniqueness of a product is inevitably shifting to a commodity status. Over time, the characteristics that make any product special are copied or imitated by competitors. As they gain more information, buyers realize that there is nothing special about a particular product. These two trends, (1) increased buyer knowledge and (2) the constant “commoditization” of all products, create challenges for marketing organizations.
These challenges are especially vexing for organizations that market “retail commodities.” For example, sellers of consumer soaps, paper goods, bread, soda, beer, bottled water, gasoline, paints, lumber and tools constantly struggle to differentiate their commodity from their competitors’. Retail product firms use well-known marketing techniques such as market segmentation, advertising, promotion, packaging, and special pricing methods to shape buyer behavior.