Final Customer Purchasing from an Intermediary of the Product

Acquire Steps: Acquire steps include all activities the customer completes preceding the purchase of the product. These steps include the customer's efforts needed to identify and evaluate Intermediaries and travel to the Intermediary location.

A.
Knowledge: Add knowledge

1.
Company and products: Help customers recognize and recall name of company and its products

A. Warnings and advice.

No.	Year	SIC	Note
1	2000	0	In order to keep costs down and profits high, companies using the internet to sell goods and services must foster e-loyalty. Harvard Business Review compared traditional and online businesses to determine the practices of loyal customers. In addition to higher purchases, a loyal customer will spread the word to friends, a process simplified by Internet technology. Automating the referral process on retailer websites can facilitate this important marketing tool. EBay is particularly successful with referrals; over half its customers were referred. This reduces costs as well as grows the business.
2	2003	0	Shoppers of the past stayed with certain distribution channels, bargain shoppers would not branch out while those willing to pay more did so without hesitation. Today's customers "channel surf" often using the services of high-touch channels to search and purchasing at the cheaper channel. This bargain hunting results in "stranded assets" or physical and organizational capabilities, typically developed at a great expense, that become more and more useless. These assets can include highly trained salespeople, lightly trafficked retail floor space and obsolescing inventory. A study found that half of all customers now shop for information in one channel then defect to another, often cheaper channel.
3	1989	5331	Carefour's new hypermarket is empty because shoppers don't know the store is there. Wanted to rely on word-of-mouth to gain customers. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart's hyperstore is packed: advertises for weeks during opening through local newspapers, TV.
4	1995	5712	In some of the largest metropolitan cities, even newspaper advertising can be cost-prohibitive for the small retailers.
5	1995	5712	Television advertising (which can reach a great number of households) in major metropolitan cities can be cost-prohibitive for many smaller furniture retailers.
6	2001	5942	Small-business owners must fight competition from large-chains by improving product selection, service, ambience, and community ties. Booksense is an online branding program that is banding together independent booksellers.
7	2001	5945	Before it shut down, eToys lost hundreds of millions of dollars. But much of that cash had been spent to build a brand that made eToys one of the best-known names in online retailing.
8	1991	6211	Wall Street's biggest firms have consolidated over the years. Firms change names to change reputation, image to customer.
9	2002	7375	A new study has found that three-quarters of adult visitors to the top 10 stand-alone career Websites are exclusive to just one site. The two most popular sites, hotjobs.com and monster.com, had the most user loyalty.
10	2003	7375	Google advertises itself very little, instead relying on word of mouth.

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