E-Tailing Persuasive Message

E-Tailing Many retailers have expanded their retail market to an online market. Using the internet to sell their goods is known as e commerce. â€Å"Ecommerce allows consumers to electronically exchange goods and services with no barriers of time or distance† (Network Solutions, n. d. ). E commerce has expanded rapidly in recent years due to its convenience for the consumer and the increase in businesses that use electronic retailing (e-tailing). Businesses use different marketing methods in order to reach their customers and attract new ones. Direct Marketing Direct marketing is when businesses sell a product or service directly to the consumer (B2C). With direct marketing, businesses have several options in marketing to their consumers. Businesses can use direct mail, television ads, and internet marketing just to name a few. There has been a rise in direct marketing in recent years. The use of direct marketing can be more costs effective for a business without having the additional cost of the overhead of a traditional store. Amazon. com took book stores to the next level when they began their website selling books via the internet in the mid 1990s. Some companies such as skin care products Proactiv and Skin ID advertise on television and direct you to their websites to purchase their products. Businesses can reach customers directly through email when they sign up for mailing lists. Emails Businesses will contact customers directly through email. This happens often with existing customers. Wells Fargo bank will contact their customers with special offers of products and services with occasional emails. Other businesses will email their customers coupons to draw them into their stores. Baskin Robins ice cream lure their customers in their stores with email coupons promising them free ice cream on their birthday. Email marketing that offers customers special savings and free products can be a very effective marketing tool. Websites Internet consumers can find great deals on travel when they go to travel websites such as Expedia and Travelocity where customers can purchase airfare, rental cars and hotels. Many of these sites offer price matching and other incentive when consumers book their travel plans with their company. They also allow the customer to comparison shop different travel deals in order to eliminate confusion for the consumer. Click-and-Mortar A popular trend in e tailing has been click-and-mortar retailers. Click-and-mortar is typically when e-tailers have an existing store and have branched out into selling their products online (Turban, et al, 2008). Many retailers have expanded their stores to an online market with their stores websites. Stores such as Walmart and Best Buy have tapped into this market. Some of these retailers have some products that are only available for purchase online. Best Buy for example, will sell products that were available at one time in their retail stores but are now only available online. There has also been a shift with e-tailers have moved from internet only to physical brick-and-mortar stores. They have taken a popular, successful way of shopping and brought it to consumers in a traditional way. These e-tailers turned brick-and-mortar as well as those who rely solely on direct marketing can target their consumers with emails, banner ads on popular websites such as social networking sites, and with internet mailing lists. Some businesses do not have enough of a market for their goods to convert to a click-and-mortar retailer â€Å"because they would not have enough consumers† (Turban, et al, 2008). When e-tailers are trying to attract potential customers, no matter what medium they use all messages must follow a similar model. The sender must make clear the purpose of the message, choose the best media for their message, and the technology they will use to deliver the message. When a business chooses the right forum they can be very effective in e tailing. Persuasive Message Member of the Community, Your local City Animal Shelter is making the move into becoming a no kill shelter by the year 2012. We are asking the residents of this city to assist us in meeting this goal by participating in our upcoming low cost spay and neutering clinics. We are also asking for your donations in order to get our new training program up and running so that we may train some of our older dogs to assist the elderly and disabled members of our community. Although the number of animals that are being euthanized is on the decline, any animal put to death is a precious life lost. Countless numbers of animals are being senselessly euthanized as a matter of population control. In order to reach our goals, the shelter plans to begin training as many of the older animals as service dogs because these animals are the least likely to be adopted out and the most likely to be euthanized. Hosting a low cost vaccination clinic will help reduce the number of strays and unwanted animals in the community. Euthanizing animals can no longer be used as a method of population control. We must begin to use our cities unwanted animals in order to help our neighbors in the community that need our help. Please help us by participating in our spay and neutering clinics or with a contribution to get our program off and running. Together we can make this a no kill city and improve the quality of life for our cities elderly and disabled. Sincerely, Your City Animal Shelter References Network Solutions. (n. d. ). What is Ecommerce? Retrieved, May 10, 2010, from http://www. networksolutions. com/education/what-is-ecommerce/ Turban, E. , King, D. , McKay, J. , Marshall, P. , Lee, J. , & Viehland, D. (2008). Electronic commerce 2008: A managerial perspective (5th ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.