ICT and e-Business Impact in the Retail Industry - empirica

e-Business in the Retail Sectorsales: Smart Supermarket (see section 5.8) had to develop a solution from scratchin close cooperation with an IT provider which was and continues to be costintensive. Fleria Floral Creations (see section 5.7) in contrast paid approximately5000€ for the set-up and 1500€ annual maintenance charge. This figure is quite lowcompared to Smart Supermarket’s cost.The case studies suggest that, in order to reap the benefits and overcome the challengesof adopting e-sales, retailers need to achieve a good fit between business strategy, e-sales strategy, business operations, and customer attitudes.3.5.3 Findings about electronic marketingA sketch of marketing issues in retailThe term “marketing” describes the objective to direct all business decisions within acompany towards the necessities of the market, i.e. towards the needs of the customers.This implies the use of particular means to influence the market and the customers’preferences in order to enhance competitiveness. These means can be related to theprice of the product, product design, the geographical areas where the products are sold,and ways to promote the products. These are the “four P” of marketing – price, product,place and promotion (McCarthy 1960). Computerised systems can support marketingefforts. Three items of particular importance were included in the e-Business Survey2007: online placement of advertisements, engagement in optimising search engines,and use of mobile services for marketing. Online placement of advertisements is includedin the following; the other two items will be included in the final report.Search engine optimisation and online placement of advertisementsPlacing online advertisements on websites that do not belong to the company itself is ameans of advertising introduced by internet business. It is very important for the businessconcept of many online service providers. The case study of Cyprus-PC.com (Section5.10) and 4fitness (Section 5.6) are examples of companies engaging in paid onlineadvertisements.67