Impact of Online Marketing Practices on e- Business Models in India: Choice as a Determinant

Abstract

Till today, Web portal Model is popular e- business model which is selling a wide range of products, with both depth and breadth of range. However, over recent years, consumers have become more discerning due to changing lifestyles, spending priorities and shopping patterns (Fisher, 1998). The focus of this research paper is to draw attention of marketers and shoppers towards the need to develop a hypothetical model named Global Super Store Model, is to change the consumer towards provision of providing a wide range of products with price comparison facility on a single portal along with a huge range of brand name suppliers. This research paper is also an attempt to find out the impact of online marketing practices on both existing Web Portal Model and our Global Super Store Model for choice as a determinant.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

In this research paper we examined the existing e-business model (Web portal model) and understand how it works and also try to find creative ways to improve it thus maximizing its power and proposing a new hypothetical model named Global Super Store.

Till date, existing Web portal Model is selling a wide range of products, with both depth and breadth of range. However, over recent years, consumers have become more discerning due to changing lifestyles, spending priorities and shopping patterns (Fisher, 1998).

The focus of Hypothetical Global Super Store Model is to change the consumer towards provision of providing a wide range of products on a single portal along with a huge range of brand name suppliers.

It will also try to provide a ‘total solution’ to customers. The basic aim of Global Super Store Model is to simplify the shopping process for customers.

Every day, millions of people go online to do research about products and make purchases from thousands of different online merchants. The web allows us to do comparison and shop for the best deals and locate products that might otherwise be difficult to ?nd. Existing Web portal Model is selling a wide range of products, with both depth and breadth of range.

A. Hypothesis

It is hypothesized that the impact of online marketing practices will be more on Global Super Store model in comparison to Web Portal Model.

II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

1. Data Collection: The data was collected through self constructive questionnaire which was administered on the selected sample by e-mails, or by posting a link on website and social networks.
2. Sample Size: An online survey was conducted from 400 Respondents for our research. Out of them, 200 were male and 200 were female. Out of this 376 were complete valid responses. The age group of respondents was 18 and above. The respondents included students, housewives, retired people, professionals including teachers, software engineers, chartered accountants etc.

III. TOOL / TECHNIQUE USED FOR DATA ANALYSIS

A comparative analysis of the impact of various factors of online marketing on the determinants of Web Portal Model and Global Super Store Model was done.

ANNOVA test was applied to know the impact of the various factors of online marketing on Choice as a determinant of Web Portal Model and Global Super Store model.

Further, the impact of online marketing was subdivided into 9 factors that broadly characterize the online marketing practices, which, as per the questionnaire are as follows:

1. Factor 1: Trend of online advertising
2. Factor 2: Online targeted people
3. Factor 3: Consumer buying behaviors
4. Factor 4: The buying patterns of men and women
5. Factor 5: Attitudes
6. Factor 6: A prior experience
7. Factor 7: Security
8. Factor 8: Brand metrics
9. Factor 9: Search for a product online

Thus, each of the factors of online marketing was studied in relation to its impact on the Choice as a determinant of Web Portal Model and Global Super Store Model separately.

ANNOVA test was applied to know the impact of various online marketing practices on choice as a factor of Web Portal Model.

• H1: It was hypothesized that online advertising practices has no significant impact on choice in Web Portal Model.

Table 1 ANOVA (1.1.W)

As per the given table, it was found that online marketing practices had a significant impact on choice in Web Portal Model, as the null hypothesis was rejected in all the above factors apart from Factor IX where significance value comes out to be .047, which is almost equal to .05. This factor was the search for a product online. Thus search for a product online has no significant relation to choice by consumers in Web Portal Model.

Thus in case of Web Portal Model, taking choice determinant, it was found out that choice of a customer is affected by various trends of online marketing practices. These practices of online marketing include trends of online advertising, online targeted people, their buying behaviors, the difference in buying patterns of men and women, their attitudes and prior experience, security concerns, and brand metrics.

Information gathering and search for the desired product is one of the most basic use of the Web and often the first step in consumer decision making. It manifests itself in different ways for each of the products searched. Many of the choices searched are relevant to buyers but at the same time, it is a challenging task to sort through them.

In case of Web Portal Model, when a consumer is searching for a product, he has to visit several different sites to explore more choice, since in Web Portal Model there are limited choices available at a single site and the thereby leading him to visit different Websites for discovering his desired product. Hence the choice becomes restricted at a single site. So, search for a product online is not a significant factor in case of Web Portal Model.

• H 2: It was hypothesized that various online marketing practices had no impact on choice determinant as per the Global Super Store Model.

Table 2 ANOVA (1.1.G.)

As per the given table, it was found that online marketing practices had a significant impact on choice in Web Portal Model, apart from Factor III and Factor VII where significance value comes out to be 0.447 and 0.631 respectively, which is more than .05. These factors relates to consumer buying behavior and security. Thus security in online marketing has no relation to choice determinant in Global Super Store Model. Similarly, consumer buying behavior in online marketing has no relation on choice determinant in Global Super Store Model.

Thus in case of Global Super Store Model, taking choice determinant, it was found out that choice of a customer is affected by various trends of online marketing practices.

These practices of online marketing include trends of online advertising, online targeted people, the difference in buying patterns of men and women, their attitudes and prior experience, and brand metrics and search of product online

Security, as an online marketing practice has no impact on choice in the hypothesized Global Super Store Model, because, as stated earlier, the Global Super Store Model was found to deliver greater security assurance to those who buy online. Online trust is the basic and essential element for building a relationship with customers. The trustworthiness of online buying relies on how much privacy and security can be provided in online buying. This is duly looked for in Global Super Store Model. This, in turn was also related to consumer buying behavior as, greater the security, the lesser is the contrast the Global Super Store Model offers a wide palate of choice for different consumers with different consumer buying behavior which can all be assimilated in the Global Super Store Model. So, there is no significant impact of these two factors in case of Global Super Store Model.

IV. SUMMARY

As Web Portal Model is a model that already exists and functions, there were certain prominent limitations that were pointed out in analysis above.

Global Super Store Model, being a proposed model will offer advancement in this area and will be more adaptable in bringing about the changes and fulfilling the lacuna that exist in Web Portal Model.

Hence, it can be well concluded that the hypothesis stands accepted that impact of online marketing practices will be more on Global Super Store Model in comparison to Web Portal Model.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2022 Dr. Neeraj Mathur, Dr. Rashmi Mathur. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.