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5
It
is also necessary to make a dramatic shift from hard to soft sell, the Internet is
much more then advertising and business, especially retail, must come to realise
that their web site is not a competitor with newspaper and flier advertising. Certainly,
there are comparisons, but the Internet is rooted in information and providing something
for something. The visitor must be rewarded with something, in exchange for his or
her valuable time spent in visiting your site. So it is that value added data to
a site becomes part of the information base of the consumer and influences their
purchases, not only now, but also in the future. It is too soon to know what this
change in the way people learn about things will ultimately have, but few are willing
to take the risk, not to become a part of it, because in time, that omission may
mean exclusion.
People
have already accepted the idea of telephone and computer based banking, news of every
kind has become electronic, entertainment for most people is visual based, but a
growing number of individuals are looking for intellectually stimulating and interactive
experiences as found with their computers, so it seems inevitable that consumer retail
purchasing will become more and more an electronically based event. I would even
go so far as to suggest that shopping malls that do not emphasis recreation will
be turned into warehouses and bingo halls. The act of physically going shopping will
increasingly be only a recreational event with all real purchasing being selected
and negotiated online. The trip to the mall will only serve as a chance to go out
and taste some ice cream and have an expensive cup of coffee in an exotic environment.
Big
ticket items like furniture and cars will be compared and valued by consumers, based
on the information they can get on the product from Internet sources while tire kicking
and test drives will only be part of the final purchase ritual. Used cars and farm
equipment will be hunted down online and then inspected on site when the purchaser
comes to take delivery.
The
public of today is almost entirely literate and after half a century of exposure
to television advertising, extremely demanding of tangible factual support for products.
Name brands and corporate identification, though a factor, is diluted by the consumers
ability to shop extra-territorially thus placing dealer versus dealer.
One
of the least understood elements in today's consumer society is that perception is
nearly everything. The best example of this is the research done by hotel chains
that revealed that people who never considering going for a swim will choose hotel
with swimming pools rather then ones who do not have swimming pools. People without
computers and access to the Internet will consider companies with web sites that
are advertised on their display adds or in fliers, more modern and more likely to
deserve patronage then those firms
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