Methods of analyzing and evaluating the marketing environment specific to online trading

Abstract

Since its inception, e-commerce had a strong impact on the way of thinking and doing business. Also, e-commerce had a strong influence on the world economy by destroying time and space barriers, offering both traders and consumers the opportunity to interact and engage in commercial transactions (no matter where they are located). Marketing environment has a significant influence on both the online stores and the shops of traditional commerce. Thus, companies must always be aware of all changes in the marketing environment. Internal and external factors can be studied and controlled so that weaknesses become strong points and threats turn into long-term opportunities. We will try to prove that elements of marketing macro environment, for example technological ones, influence in a very particular way the activity of electronic commerce companies. We also think that interacting with marketing micro environment factors, such as supply-chain sales (supply chain management), is totally different from what happens in offline trade. In this sense, two marketing researches, a qualitative focus group and another quantitative on a sample basis are made. These researches have as main objective the study of the perception of companies about the impact of environmental factors on their activity. The analysis and the results included in this paper will be useful to the companies that carry out their activity in the online environment, but also to the researchers who approach this field.