• How many times do you make decisions throughout the day?

What should I wear

today? What perfume should I put on? What am I going to have for lunch?
•
• If you think about it, we make many buying decisions every day without giving
them much thought.
• People, of course, have always "consumed" the necessities of life – food, shelter,
clothing – and have always had to work to get them or have others work for
them, but there was little economic motive for increased consumption among
the mass of people before the 20th Century. Nowadays, it seems that the
human society is being more and more influenced by consumerism.
• But what is, after all, consumerism?
• Consumerism is the idea that increasing the consumption of goods
and services purchased in the market is always a desirable goal and
that a person's wellbeing and happiness depend fundamentally on
obtaining consumer goods and material possessions. In an economic
sense, it is related to the idea that consumer spending is the key
driver of the economy and that encouraging consumers to spend is a
major policy goal.
• But Can we say, at the start of the twenty-first century, that consumerism
has become a global phenomenon? It is true that people all over the
world are increasingly exposed to similar commercial messages and
images of “the good life,” but consumer society is not yet universal for
two main reasons. First, the majority of people around the world are
simply too poor to be considered modern consumers. Over 700 million
people, about 10 percent of humanity, live in “extreme” poverty, defined
by the World Bank as living on less than $1.90 per day. Even further, 71
percent of the world’s population lives on less than $10 per day,
according to a 2015 report. While an income of $10 per day is considered
the minimum necessary for a degree of economic security, it is not
enough to support a consumerist lifestyle. The second reason
consumerism is not yet universal is that in numerous places around the
world cultural and religious values exist that seek to restrain, or even
reject, the consumer society.
• However, there’s no doubt that consumerism is growing. Today’s consumer consumption patterns have
started to change as a result of increasing investment in telecommunication and Internet infra-structure.
• The internet has developed very rapidly as a major force in the marketing equation for many consumer
products. Not only has it become an important marketing tool, it has also dramatically changed the
marketing equation. Understanding those changes is fundamental to harnessing the power of the internet
to capture the loyalty of your customers and build your business. Now I’m going to present you some
major ways the Interne is changing the face of marketing and how the equation is evolving.
•
• Educating the Consumer
• The internet began largely as an information and research vehicle. Although it has rapidly shifted from being
an educational tool to an engine of commerce, it is still an important information source. Consumers can
now sit down in the convenience of their own home and learn about your product. In fact, chances are
good they will look to the internet to do preliminary research about a new product area regardless of how
they buy the product. Brick and mortar stores are learning that many of their consumers will do research
on the internet before buying at the store. As a business owner, it is important to be open and make
information easily available to customers. With the information age, customers are often more hungry for
information about a product and anxious to make more informed decisions. Easily available information is
no longer something nice to have — it is expected. While we used to live in a world of information-barren
30-second commercials, consumers now demand more, and they will find the information they need.
•
• Customer Initiated Interaction
• In the past, the company initiated contact with the customer through research and eventually
through their advertising. The internet has empowered consumers with an enhanced ability to
easily initiate contact with the company to learn about their products or purchase them
without leaving their home. They may approach the company any time during the day rather
than strictly during “store hours”. Customers are coming to expect access to the company at
their own convenience. This has given birth to internet search engines and directories that
facilitate the consumers’ desires to find the information and products they are interested in.
•
• Today companies need to ensure they are visible on the web through these search engines and
have a website that is easy to navigate and available at the customers’ convenience.
•
• Information Overload
• While consumers expect access to information, they are also overloaded by the abundance of it.
They generally resent having information pushed on them. Hence, spam laws and anti-spam
software are gaining popularity. The implications for the marketer are two-fold. First, it is
important to provide meaningful and useful information in all the communication with
customers. Honor a commitment to customers who opt in for e-mail communication to not
abuse their trust. Space the e-mails to avoid becoming an annoyance. Make the communication
useful to them. Second, keep communication on the website and in e-mails concise and easy to
read. This is not a medium that tolerates long-winded treatises. Package information in easy to
digest packets.
•
• Serve the Customer Well
• It has always been important to provide an excellent product and back it with excellent service. The internet
has made that even more essential. Chat rooms and other internet channels have accelerated the
feedback loop on products and the service that backs them up. Consumers can instantly find out a
company’s record at the Better Business Bureau or any of a number of product rating services right from
their own home. No longer must a consumer sit down and write a detailed letter to the company to
complain. It is easy to log into a chat room or file a complaint, and it is instantly available to millions of
consumers to see. Quality products and effective customer service are essential to those companies that
wish to survive.
•
• Increased Consumer Participation in the Product Offering
• Not too many years ago, the marketing department initiated research with consumers and then determined
what new products to develop, what features should be included, how to price them, and how well they
liked the offering. Today, the consumer is increasingly dictating the terms of the offering. Consider major
online merchants that allow customers to determine the price by auctioning products, transportation, or
services. The major trend in mass customization has been facilitated by the internet allowing customers to
dictate the features their product will have. Customers are growing to expect more say in what the
product will be and how much it will cost. Personalized service will continue to play an ever increasing role
in consumer products.
•
• Cross-Channel Consciousness
• With increasing information available to consumers and their ability to communicate with each other more
easily, companies must be ever more conscious of different channel offerings. For example, while it may
have been easy to provide a different offer at a retail store versus a catalog in earlier years, consumers
now rapidly capture that information and communicate it to each other quickly and easily. Internet
comparison sites and consumer chat rooms make information much more readily available. Marketers
must be aware that different pricing in different channels may not be as easy to execute as in the past
without rapid migration of purchases, consumer confusion or dissatisfaction. The successful marketer will
now establish a deliberate channel strategy rather than leaving it to chance. Consumers will want and
expect greater consistency.
• In a nutshell, the evolution of the Internet has transformed how
consumers purchase goods and perceive brands. With
multidirectional flow of information, every consumer is now
empowered to take more informed decisions. Though the process of
marketing has evolved with the popularity of the Internet, the role
and importance of marketing still remains the same. Its aim is to
foster quality customer relationship that correlates with the
changing consumer behaviour.