Internet and Distribution of Products - Coursework Example

Internet and distribution of products Name Course Tutor Date Internet and distribution of products An interesting fantastic, dynamic field, marketing influences our everyday lives in various ways. We are all consumers, and several individuals are comprised in the marketing agency may be as salespersons, advertising agents, product managers, retailers, etc. marketing has been observed traditionally as an enterprise activity. Business firms are created to satisfy human wants, specifically the material needs. Marketing entails primarily sales and distribution of commodities and this process has enabled business to venture into various sectors as a means of promoting their products. Distribution of products involves exchange mechanism. This procedure entails at least two parties: buyer and seller. Each party offers something of value and gets something of value. It can be seen as a community process through which individuals and teams get what they want and desire by creating, providing, and independently exchanging goods and services of value with others. Since distribution activities leads to exchanges, distribution is a essential function in an economic system. In an independent business economy, resources are distributed by the interaction of supply and demand in the market place. Marketing practices and organizations offer the framework and approaches for this interaction and the distribution occurs. Modern marketing maps out its existence to the old types of trade. As individuals began to use the approaches of job specialization, there came a requirement for personal and organizations to enhance the procedure of exchange surfaced. Haluk et.al (2010, p 3), confirmed that it was not until 19th century that marketing was still more of physical distribution. However, things have change and people as well as the production companies have started using the modern technology in their marketing and distribution process. This involved wide range of advertisement and application of the media, which mainly uses the Internet as the main mode of interaction between the sales and the buyer. Various modes of interactions have existed that proved to be successful, but as the world changes, every other thing also change and we encounter a different face from what we had some few years back. The vigorous techniques that were employed were attainable, but public demands keep on shifting. Consumers need more than just the products that manufacturers offer in the market. This, therefore, necessitated the development of a new approach referred to as the marketing concept. This approach is focused at inclining a business entirely towards its customers. This cannot be possible without the application of the Internet. It therefore, implies that all other main decisions must be dependent on essential market consideration. Managers ought to consider the customer’s feelings and ensure they meet all their demands. This can be achieved by being in constant communication with customers. The Internet enables whole day accessibility to customers and producers since it works 24 hours a day seven days a week. This is called E-commerce and consumers can get information or make inquiries on products right from their homes, office, or any place convenient to them. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) entails the use of data and interaction technology to market products and services and carries out other business deals. Electronic data interchange (EDI), fax, Internet, e-mail, and electronic funds transfers (EFT) are the basic techniques applied in business. E-commerce could comprise business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B) dealings (Bar F. (1998, p. 12). The approximate number of persons using the Internet changes, nonetheless, everybody accepts that the number of Internet users globally goes above 150 million and it keeps on growing at a sheer high rate. Nearly half of the applicants are in the United States. Following this invention, products like books, PC hardware and software, clothing, travel, and financial services are the key regularly purchased products. Different consumer study illustrates that Internet users are somehow young, learned, prosperous, and employed in occupation and white-collar jobs. They adopt the technology and feel satisfied making purchases online. This group of individuals like the home oriented lifestyle, which provides more time for other quests. The distributors have learnt the trick and have placed all the details about the product they have in their website for customers to view and compare qualities, prices, and availability of products. Most essential, many clients prefer the convenience of being in a position to look immediately at all the products available in the market weighing on which to buy before they order from a large view of suppliers and distributors. Enterprise purchasers have been at the forefront in utilizing the technology. From $8 billion in 2000, B2B sales are anticipated to go beyond $200 Billion in 2011. Business clients think that the Web makes it possible to handle several suppliers. This allows clients to save time and obtain reduced prices or excellent services. Ever since its establishment, the Internet has transformed the economic practices, resulting in considerable high efficiency and productivity. Fueling the optimistic expectation, for most organizations the Internet has ushered in a magnificent market that has replaced the old, ineffective enterprise hierarchy and distribution channels. Bar (1998, p. 17) asserts that the Internet also provides a level ground for all process since most of the products are standardized and need not be advertise extensively. The Web as acted as an intermediary between economic relationships offering equal force to all markets contributors. This gives the innovative companies some uniqueness since most of the products are the same, but what matters are the quality and some creative presentation. Bar (2010, p 2), states that the Internet growth is user-driven and bottom-up. This has lead to decentralization channels, where everyone can be part of the inter-channel from Internet Protocol (IP). Not like the past communication channels, the Internet deemed mainly to be self-controlling and enables any innovative person or company to participate on the same footing. The desires that technology would easily carry on the economic degrees have been achieved with most companies simply operating at their offices and clients consult them on the available of the products and online transactions is now possible. Therefore, one need to click the button and everything is done. Internet technology has with its decentralization has pushed market structures: the low prices of execution and the infinite range of new applications have reduced the impediments to entry, decentralize economic strength, hence, democratize community and empower people and companies. Haluk et.al (2010, p.5) stated currently that innovation is concern more on fresh goods. It is about reformulating enterprise procedure and creating a wholly new market, which satisfy the unused consumers wants. Most fundamental as the Internet and globalization extends the scope of fresh thoughts, it is choosing and implementing the correct ideas and conveying them to market in a record period. In the last century, innovation was concerned with technology and management of value and cost. Now it is concerned with ensuring corporate firms develop efficiency and cabling them for creativity and development. The Internet also has specific characteristics of identified a target market for the company to concentrate in. By posting the products features in the Internet, the manufacturers expect feedback and they can use this to establish which sector of the economy provided most replies implying that there is a greater market and investing there is more profitable. The distributors of the company products can be directed to such location and this will increase sales enabling the company to grow. In addition, many companies in the past used to hire market research to carry out the work on their behalf. With the introduction of the Internet, the organizations can just log in to various sectors’ websites and conduct their research on their own. The expensive and some times unreliable services of the market researchers have been done away by the Internet and this develops the creativity and efficiency of the organization since they will get what they want directly not from the researcher’s point of view. Apart from that, the simple entry and simple exit enabled by economical, flexible Internet innovations have kept the present distributors regularly on their move, in the concerns of economic efficiency (Gates, 1995, p. 158). Currently, the economic utilities have surfaced that differs from the normal form of forecasting. Distant from the crowd of exchangeable contestants, focus seems to control various divisions of e-commerce, where strictly the main players seem capable of succeeding. Although Internet has cut down the overhead and transaction costs, e-commerce contestants need sizeable savings to survive. With the Internet, distributors have no need to construct warehouses or hire sales force, there is a well-designed website handling sales, and still be able to regulate customers from getting their products when produced. This ensures continuous productions and distributors have to be on high alert since signals will be passed to them from time to time. With the Internet, there is no need to have expensive inventory, orders could just be transferred on to suppliers during the time of delivery. The technological advancements have also removed embedded competitive advantage enabling small investors to compete strongly with the large scale. Since all they need is how to manage sales and ensure they meet the needs of the target market. The Internet is also beneficial to distributors since it ensure a friction free business environment. In the past, communication exercises amounted for a huge section of cost of transactions. They portray the challenge and cost of looking for commodities, establishing the right distributors, and consumers, bargaining contracts, billing and gathering, and invoicing buyers. All these were aspects that created market friction (Gates, 1999, p. 158). The Internet provides cheap and effective approaches to set up and carry out transactions that can minimize the expected frictions. Following the emergence of globalization, businesses and companies have started venturing into foreign markets in search of more customers for their products. Internet has played a crucial role in facilitating these businesses to prosper since individuals do not necessarily have to travel to the place of manufacture or destination of goods. To improve in this kind of business, one needs to be innovative, and flexible. Venturing into a new market is risking during the initial stages for no one knows the culture as well as the political situations existing at that time. Distributors, therefore, take advantage of the situation and ensure full utilization of the Internet to let people know of their existences and what type of goods do they distribute. International businesses have been made possible by the process of globalization being facilitated by the Internet. The innovation and extensions in the Internet have reduced the world to a small village where everything is possible (Haluk, et.al, 2010, p. 13). One can transact and transfer funds just like face-to-face transactions. It also enables transfer of technology from one country to another: thus, businesspersons and companies have a wide range of knowledge on how to conduct, and carry on with their daily activities with the best innovative practices. The condition of Internet implies that enterprises now have worldwide reach. Traditional media expenditure checks this type of reach to large organizations, e-Marketing creates fresh avenues for upcoming businesses, to avail prospectus clients throughout the world. Internet marketing and distribution ensures marketers satisfy a wide range of consumers who could otherwise have had troubles in looking for the products and services that they need. This saves them many times and resources. In conclusion, we can say that the internet is now the tool necessary for business and companies need to embrace its development has it gives them many advantages and increases their markets. Most corporations have also invested heavily in Internet services and creation of the website for their companies to be used in presenting the company details as well new products that they may be selling or some products that need to be sold. Without the Internet, nothing can be possible for the organizations since as one sales products physically some will be doing it online and in most cases will reach a large number of people and potential customers. This at least increases their chances of purchasing the products since they get more clients looking at their products. References: Bar F. (1998). The Construction of Marketplace Architecture. Retrieved on May 14, 2011, from < http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~fbar/Publications/Brookings-E-Marketplaces.pdf> 1-24 Bill Gates, “Friction-free Capitalism and the Price of the Future,” Retrieved on May 14, 2011, from < www.microsoft.com/billgates/columns/1998Essay/5-20col.asp [December 1999]>. Pp. 158. Haluk, D., Cheng, K., and Subhajyoti, B. (2010). Coordination Strategies in an SaaS Supply Chain. Journal of Management Information Systems, 26 (4), p119-143. Read More