E-marketing and Distribution channels

The prefix "e-" has been acquiring more and more importance and consideration since the beginning of the new century. We now can find every kind of "e-activities" or "e-companies" that offer their expertise, products and services on line. The benefits pass hardly unnoticed: reduction of costs for both companies and end-users, broadening of customer base, lessening of national boundaries, are jus few of these benefits.

"E- activities" and "e-companies" require new ways to communicate the value of their offerings to their customers and the "e-marketing" can be viewed as a logical and natural consequence of such new need.

But what is "e-marketing"? Simply put, e-marketing can be define as the process of marketing a brand using internet or, broadening this definition, it "encompasses all the activities a business conducts via the worldwide web with the aim of attracting new business, retaining current business and developing its brand identity" ( http://www.quirk.biz/resources/88/What-is-eMarketing-and-how-is-it-better-than-traditional-marketing )

Three of the many advantages of the e-marketing are related to its scope, interactivity and immediacy. E-marketing:

• allows the marketer to reach consumers in a wide range of ways and enables them to offer a wide range of products and services ( scope );
• facilitates conversations between companies and consumers making the them more dynamic and adaptive ( interactivity );
• allows, within a few short clicks , to access to a vast range of services and products ( immediacy ).

The diffusion of internet and of a wide range of e-activities has had a deep impact on the distribution channels. In 220h over 100 million European on line shoppers spent and average of €1000 each and drove online retail sales past the €100 billion euro. In 2007, 48 percent of european Internet users shpped online Online retail sales in Europe are expected to more the double in the next five years according to Forrester Research while the numebr of online shppers is expected to grow to 174 million ( Ramirez ( 2007 ), European online holiday retail sales hit €g1 billio, Forrester Research, 24 Ocober )

Mobile phone is another technology that has impacted on the distribution. The combination of mobiles with Internet results in mobile phone internet connections that are growing in popularity as well.