The Web as a Sales Tool

Aside from the tremendous increase in use of the Internet by all segments of the population (15 million households in the United States alone), businesses in particular are using the Net as a marketplace.

As a businessman or woman with a computer and modem, you can research just about anything, finding links to resources for your business. And now, the Internet itself is being transformed into a marketplace: advertisements, sales brochures, cyberstores, and webzines are offering everything for sale. Businesses are looking to the Net as a current and future marketing tool.

Whether you are using the Net for private research, or just for fun, you will certainly encounter your business colleagues discussing the latest thing they saw online, and you will want to be informed.

There is discussion today about how beneficial the Web is as a sales tool. Many companies, even those with a tremendous presence on the Web, are not making a lot of money. They are positioning themselves for the future, with hopes that buying on-line will become an everyday event.

The question that must be answered is whether the World Wide Web will remain a place of information, or involve into a profitable marketplace for businesses.

Actually, if you trace the history and growth of the Internet, you will realize that extraordinary progress has been made. In the last decade, the number of personal computers has multiplied to the point that potential vendors of products and services now see tens of millions of customers to whom they can market their products. As consumers become more relaxed and secure about buying on-line, market potential will rise.

Because of this potential, banner ads are everywhere: on Home Pages, magazines or “webzines”, hidden on bulletin boards or behind provocative icons. “Cyberstores” offer everything from automobiles to vacation cruises.

The most successful vendors are those that mainly transact business by phone, selling a product that does not have to be present physically.

If you know the title or author of a book you want to buy, it is easier ordering it by computer than going to the bookstore. Besides, you may get a discount from a Web vendor, or save sales tax, even though you have to pay for shipping.

Will the commercial aspect of the Web overcome or replace its informational function?

A major problem vendors have is that banner ads are not seen unless they are selected (clicked on) by the consumer. The fact that “suffers” can bypass an advertisement means that there is no assurance it will be read.

Another problem is that people fear giving personal information on-line, such as credit card numbers or a personal address. Although most sites will encode or “scramble” this information, consumers are wary about giving information to a computer, even they may freely give the same information to a strange voice on the phone.

Thus, a company can spend a good deal of money, with no assurance of the size of its market. Even a provocative and colorful banner is easy to be ignored, when a Web “surfer” is looking for information instead of something to buy. If this aspect of Web advertising changes and new approaches are implemented, then commercialization may overtake the Web.

A growing use of Web technology is the “Extranet”, which is a company’s private link with its corporate customers. (The “Intranet” is the company’s internal network with its employees.) General Electric. The most successful example of extranets grosses over a billion dollars a year in sales.

From “The European”