E-commerce as a Business-to-Consumer International Market Entry Essay

E-commerce as a Business-to-Consumer International Market Entry system - Essay ExampleIn the following paper I will be examining e-commerce in basis of marketing entry outline and business-to-consumer operations. Marketing mix and strategies for effective product distribution through the alley of e-commerce is reviewed to cover the topic. Ultimately, conclusions and recommendations end up the paper.As illustrated in Figure 1, business to consumer (B2C) refers to the selling of goods and/or service directly to consumers by businesses. The classic example is Amazon (www.amazon.com) which offers in excess of 1.5 million book titles online and has extend its sales into other(a) products, including music CDs, videos and games. Business to business (B2B) refers to the selling of goods and/or services by peerless company to another as part of their supply chain, and is likely to contribute to at least 80 per cent of the growth of e-Commerce in the next five years. An example is Mars halls (www.marshalls.com).There are significant overlaps amidst Internet strategy and Internet marketing, particularly if a company adopts a broad perspective of marketing by engendering customer focus throughout the business, as described above. Indeed, the two terms can be regarded as synonymous. Chaffey (2002) regards Internet marketing as a subset of Internet strategy that he calls sell-side e-commerce, meaning that it focuses on building relationships with customers, in parallel with buy-side e-commerce that focuses on supply chain management. Chen (2001) regards Internet marketing as dealing with operational rather than strategic issues, but includes customer relationship management in the operational category. In this book, we use the term Internet marketing in a broad sense, while still distinguishing strategic aspects and operational aspects. Usually, when mouth of B2C operations, the business of e-retail is implied in the term. The business of e-retail has been defined a s the sale of goods and services via Internet or other electronic channels, for personal or household use by consumers (Harris and Dennis, 2002). This definition includes all e-commerce activities that result in transactions with end consumers (rather than business customers), i.e. B2C rather than B2B. Some e-marketing activities that do not directly involve transactions, such as providing (free) information or promoting brands and image, are considered to be part of B2C but are not ordinarily considered as being within the scope of e-retail. Despite the dot.com crash of 2000, e-retailing has been growing, particularly for the top eight categories that account for three-quarters of all European sales. These major growth areas comprise books, music and DVD movies, groceries, sex products, games and software, electronic and computer equipment, travel, and clothes. Disadvantages of E-Commerce as an multinational marketing entry strategy Over perceived benefits of E-Commerce as an in ternational market entry strategy that will be discussed later in this paper, this kind of product or service distribution has its disadvantages. Retailers, for example, whitethorn lack the technical know-how, the substantial investment required or