Research in cyberspace
Research in cyberspace
The exponential and global growth in the Internet has provided the researcher on-line access to unprecedented volumes of knowledge resources and "mass customised" access to large numbers of individuals and consumers. This special edition of QMRIJ "Research in cyberspace" brings together seven papers at the cutting edge of this new and exciting frontier. The papers encompass research by academics (Illinois, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff,Surrey), practitioners (New York and UK) and academic-practitioner coalitions.
The volume of knowledge resources on the World Wide Web requires a controlled approach to setting the research parameters before initiating research. Furrer and Sudharshan develop a typology of Internet marketing research differentiating between Web pages, corporate sites and Internet users. They detail a step-by-step approach to identifying and mitigating the sampling problems that can occur in Internet-facilitated research.
Within the pantheon of virtual or on-line research methodologies lie the synchronous virtual focus group and the asynchronous bulletin board. Sweet examines the validity of a variety of qualitative research methods and discusses their appropriateness in the two environments. Recommendations for conducting virtual groups and avoiding technical obstacles are provided.
The "pull" and "push" factors engendering qualitative and quantitative on-line research are examined and detailed in the next paper. The pull factors, increased competition through new entrants, may lead to a need to mitigate poor research practice and unethical behaviour. Nancarrow, Pallister and Brace propose the further development of the ESOMAR Internet research codes to mitigate the seven sins of excess, omission, exposure, intrusion of privacy,negligence, off-loading and complacency seen, variously, in Internet enabled research.
Consumers are interacting with each other and, potentially, direct marketers with increased levels of consumer led control. The development of consumer-to-consumer e-commerce is mirrored by virtual communities of mutual interest. Evans, Wedande, Ralston and van 't Hul explore "attitudes and propensity towards participating in virtual or on-line communities" and suggest that virtual communities can allow the development of valuable communication between the company and the consumer and between the consumer and consumer.
Engendering the loyalty of the customer to a company, and the resulting tendency towards repeat purchases, is an essential part of any marketing ethos. The Internet, however, provides substantially increased degrees of product or service provision and high price transparency and low switching costs. Clarke states that customer loyalty is the foundation of brand equity and uses the BrandSignature methodology to value the Amazon.com and Wall-Mart Internet and store retailers respectively. Whilst similar levels of brand equity are noted,the ability of Amazon.com to "mass customise" generates a competitive advantage.
Segmentation in the retail consumer market has at its core the ability to identify the particular characteristics – demographic, income, consumer preferences – that relate to an individual and a location. Louvieris and Driver observe that segmentation in cyberspace is currently hampered by the Domestic Internet Service Providers' practice of providing temporary addresses. They view the forthcoming next generation of Internet Protocol (Ipv6), which provides for permanent addresses, as a foundation for a reflexive cyberdemographic approach to segmentation in cyber-space.
The Internet and other electronic communication technologies allow the collection of enormous volumes of digital data. Abbott finds that although companies, by and large, are not equipped to take advantage of this data flow,such a flow is integral to establishing a relationship marketing approach underpinned by e-CRM, electronic-customer relationship management.
This special edition has brought together papers from a number of perspectives. If it has enthused the academic, the market researcher and the practitioner to explore the opportunities offered by cyberspace, we, the Guest Editors, will have seen our vision for this special edition achieved.
We wish to thank the authors, the paper reviewers, participants in the Internet Marketing Workshop held at De Montfort University Graduate School of Business and the Editor of QMRIJ, Professor Len Tiu Wright, for their support of this special issue. The abstracts of earlier versions of the papers by Brace et al., Evans et al., Clark and Abbott were published in the Proceedings of the Internet Marketing Workshop, 8 December, 2000.
Rehan ul-HaqUniversity of Birmingham E-mail: r.ul-haq@bham.ac.uk
Chris MannUniversity of Cambridge E-mail: ccm10@cus.cam.ac.uk
