Christmas shopping in cyberspace - increased use of Internet for Christmas shopping is forecast for 1997 - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Dec, 1997

Fewer shoppers may be headed out to shopping malls this holiday season. They may be seeking to avoid heavy crowds at stores by finding their gifts in cyberspace. Experts have been saying for some time that the World Wide Web will enable people to perform an expanding array of tasks from their computers. Ronald C. Goodstein, associate professor of marketing, Indiana University, Bloomington, believes this will be the first of many Christmases where electronic commerce plays a significant role, along with catalogs and direct mail.

"People have been thinking about the Web and playing around with it. There are a lot of people who may, during this holiday season, start experimenting with it." Goodstein cites the growing number of Internet providers for business and retailers on the Web.

Research indicates that nearly half of the people who watch television ignore the commercials. Good advertising must get people's attention before selling a product. "On the Web, people are already interested. They've sought out that product category, so they're already more knowledgeable. They know what to look for or, at least, where to go. They're already prospects."

To Goodstein, successful electronic commerce allows customers to move straight to the point of building an image and attitudes about a company and its products, followed by closing the deal. He acknowledges that finding a company's Web site can be a real challenge, given the daunting number of new ones each day Web search engines usually are not specific enough to target on a company's site. The most savvy firms incorporate an established brand name into their Web address, as well as a toll-free number.

Some companies sell advertising on their Web pages to support Internet efforts financially, but most do so without considering further possibilities for "suggestive selling." A traditional example of suggestive selling is the shirt, necktie, or other complementary garments a clothing salesperson might set down next to the suit you're thinking about buying.

Computers will play a key role in another retail marketing trend--direct mail. "Junk mail" of the past is becoming a much more targeted sales pitch, as companies gather and use better information about customers. "When you shop at certain stores, they are keeping track of what you buy." Larger retailers keep databases on customers. Credit card issuers are selling buying-pattern information about you to other firms. This leads to direct mail that is "based on the purchase habits that you've had before, not just done randomly. The effectiveness of the direct mail you get is going to be a lot higher than before."