A PROJECT REPORT

ON

INTERNET MARKETING

BACHELOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SESSION : 2019-2022

Under the supervision of :

Submitted by : SAKSHI GOYAL

Roll Number : 1903925071137

UTTAM GROUP OF TECHNOLOGY & MANAGEMENT

RUNKATA , AGRA
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to the following individuals who

have played a crucial role in the research for this project. Without their
active cooperation the preparation of this project could not have been
completed within the specified time limit.

The first person I would like to acknowledge is my guide who

supported me throughout this project with utmost cooperation and
patience. I am very much thankful to them for sparing their precious time
for me and for helping me in doing this project.

Next I would like to thank my college for their strong support and
cooperation. I have learnt different metrics of Internet marketing and online
media.

Finally I would like to thank to all my friends who have helped in all possible
ways in making this project presentable.

Last but not the least I would like to thank the Almighty for always helping me.
 INDEX
Sr. No. Topic
1 Evolution of Marketing
2 Growth Of Internet Usage in India and the World
3 Overview of Indian Users
4 Understanding Internet Customers
5 7 P's Of Internet Marketing
6 Internet Marketing & Its Tools

• SEO
• Email Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• Banner Advertisements
• Sales Promotion
• Social Media Marketing
• B2B Web Portals

7 E-commerce & Online Shopping

• Growth of E-commerce
• How Online Shopping work

8 E-ticketing
9 Challenges in Internet Marketing
10 Traditional marketing v/s Internet marketing
11 Summary
12 Future of internet marketing
13 Conclusion & Biblography
 Evolution of Marketing
At the beginning of the 19th century, social life was mostly local. It was followed
by a period in which commodities were produced on a mass scale. Consumer
Marketing operated on mass marketing principles and business primarily
concerned itself with how to build the best sales force. At the end of the century,
there is an emerging global culture. The major driver of these changes is
technology. Technological change has moved steadily back focusing on the
individual. These changes shape the possibility and conduct of business.
Marketing is especially tied to communication and transportation revolution. As
the tools and reach of marketing increase, the job and responsibilities of
marketers have evolved with them.

Kotler formalized this evolution with his boo k "Marketing Management." His key
stages are production, sales and brand management. Each of these is strongly
motivated by technological opportunities, which permit new methods and new
opportunities. A fourth stage, a focus on the individual customer, is also important.
As the new technology of the Internet develops, it reinforces the new marketing
emphasis which in many ways is a return to business at the turn of the century.

In today's technology driven world, a new fast paced digital economy is

emerging. In the near future, it wouldn't be surprising to see that there are
companies that exist only inside computer networks. Most business transactions
will be made electronically, directly from the producer to the consumer, bypassing
the supply chain. In the digital marketing environment, the consumer becomes
an integral player in the development of the product. In fact, a consumer might
build the product himself from a wide array of parts provided by the company. It
is e-commerce that is changing the way products and services are conceived,
manufactured, promoted, priced, distributed and sold. The reason being that it is
much cheaper; it allows vast coverage and helps in serving the customer better.
Growth Of Internet Usage Globally
and India

According to the research report of Goldman Sachs, India has emerged as

the secondlargest Internet market in Asia after China with 100 million users in
2005. It estimated that Indian Internet Users will increase by 130% compounded
annual growth rate (CAGR) from 0.5 million users recorded at end of 1998. Also
the figures of the number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) increased by
leaps and bounds and March 2006 saw 30 private international gateways. As
per preliminary findings of the NASSCOM survey, the total volume of E-
commerce transactions in India was about Rs.131 crore in the year 1998-99.
Out of this volume, about Rs.12 crore were contributed by retail Internet or
Business-to-Consumer transactions, and about Rs.119 crore were contributed
by Business-to-Business transactions. The survey also revealed that E-
Business transactions in India are expected to exceed to $ 100 billion i.e.
around Rs.4500 billion by end of 2008 which includes both b2b and b2c
transactions. However, Business to business deals constitutes the majority of
e-commerce transactions in India.

The Figure below gives us a fairer idea of the current world internet usage.

Diagram 1.1
Overview of the Indian Internet
Users

Diagram 2.1

Diagram 2.2
With 81 million Internet users India is at the 4th place globally in internet usage.
The statistic is for Internet users and not for Internet connections. When it comes
to broadband connections India does not feature in the top 10. Which means,
the users are possibly using Internet centres or office to access the Internet.

Internet subscribers in India are 13.5 million and broadband subscribers are 5
million. US has about 73 million broadband users, which is about 15x of India's
broadband users in 2008, which is less than 10% penetration of the internet
population compared to the US broadband penetration of the internet users,
which is 30%. An estimated 4.6 million Indian Internet users are Banking Online
today. Only 37% of Indian Internet users come from Top 10 cities. 51% of users
accessed dating / friendship sites. Most popular search engine is Google and
major activities are social networking & IM, job search, online banking and
shopping, matrimonial search, watching videos and downloading songs etc.

Male online users increased in absolute numbers but dipped from 72% (2004-
05) to 68% (2005-06) .Women numbers increased from 28% in 2004-05 to 32%
in 2005-06 [12.32 million]. The estimate for the male female ratio in the next 2
years is that it will be closer to the 60:40.
According to industry estimates, there will be 80 million (already crossed that
figure) Internet users in India by 2010 and 100 million by 2012. Mobile Internet
Browsing is said expected to grow to 400 million (a figure that I strongly doubt)
as 3G is set to come up in the next year and mobile usage.

Source: MAIT & Economic Times

 7 P's of Marketing on the Internet

The four P's - Product, Price, Place and Promotion have long been associated
with marketing, but things have changed on the Internet. So along with a
change in the nature of the four P's there are three new P's which are relevant
to the internet marketer.

1. The Product on the Internet usually changes form online, and the user
experiences it electronically, in the form of text, images and multimedia. Physical
goods are usually presented in the form of a detailed online catalogue that the
customer can browse through. Technology allows the user to virtually touch and
feel the product on the Internet - rotate it, zoom in or zoom out and even visualize
the product in different configurations and combination. The example of the above
can be seen at dell.com where the company offers the user to virtually feel every
aspect of their product before they go into a buy decision. Content and software
are two avatars of digitized products that can be even distributed over the Internet.
Infact Information is one of the biggest product on the internet as people search
and read a lot of news and information on the internet. On the Internet, E-
marketing will be based more on the product qualities rather than on the price.
Every company will be able to bring down the cost of its products and hence
competition will not be on price. It will rather be on the uniqueness of the product.
To be able to attract the customers and retain them, the company will have to
provide nouvelle and distinct products that forces the net users to purchase and
come back for more.

2. The Price has been drastically changed over the Internet. It lets the buyer decides
the price. Also it gives the buyers information about multiple sellers selling the
same product. It leads to best possible deal for the buyers in terms of price. A
website named cleartrip.com is extremely popular as its compares the price of
many airlines and offers the least price to the buyer. The very famous bazee.com
now known as eBay. in follows the same principles and it is one of the biggest
online shopping websites in the world. Pricing is dynamic over the Internet.
3. The Place revolves around setting up of a marketing channel to reach the
customer. Internet serves as a direct marketing channel that allows the
producer to reach the customer directly. The elimination of the intermediate
channel allows the producer to pass the reduced distribution cost to the
customer in the form of discounts. For example, Dell Computers used this
strategy very effectively and hence they have been able to reduce their prices of
their laptops drastically and reaped huge profits.

4. Promotion is extremely necessary to entice the customer to its website, as there

are currently more than 18 billion web pages. Promoting a website includes both
online and offline strategies. Online strategies include search engine
optimization, banner ads, multiple points of entry, social media marketing,
strategic partnership and affiliate marketing. Presently, the cyberspace is already
cluttered with thousands of sites probably selling similar products. For the
customers to know of the Company's existence and to garner information on the
kind of products or services that the company is offering, promotion has to be
carried out. There can be traded links or banner advertisements for the same.
Also the traditional mediums like print, outdoor advertising and television can be
used to spread awareness. Email campaigns and spamming the Chat rooms on
almost every server has been exploited to the maximum for the cause of
promoting their website.

5. Presentation The presentation of the online business/ website needs to have an

easy to use navigation and a pleasant and neat look. The look and the feel of
the web site should be based on corporate logos and standards. About 80% of
the people read onl y 20% of the web page. Therefore, the web page should not
be cluttered with a lot of information. Also, simple but powerful navigational aids
on all web pages like search engines make it easy for customer to find their way
around. The principle of K.I.S.S (Keep it simple stupid) is the most important factor
that has to be considered while presenting the online business

6. Processes Customer supports needs to be integrated into the online web site. A
sales service that will be able to answer the questions of their customers fast and
in a reliable manner is necessary. To further enhance after sales service,
customers must be able to find out about their order status after the sale has
 of the parcel and they are well informed about the present whereabouts of their
package. Similar variants have been used by the Govt of India for its Speed post
and Registered Ad services where you can keep a track of your post by entering
the code that has been issued to you.

7. Personalization Using the latest software from Broad-Vision and others, it is

possible to customize the entire web site for every single user, without any
additional costs. The mass customization allows the company to create web
pages products and services that suit the requirement of the user. A customized
web page does not only include the preferred layout of the customer but also a
pre selection of goods the customer may be interested in. For e.g. Yahoo!
(www.yahoo.co.in) entered the Indian cyberspace and started its personalized
services. A registered user of Yahoo can now personalize the front page with all
the information he needs. He can read the news of the world, add a tax calculator,
see the weather forecasts of his city and listen to his favourite songs and all this
simultaneously.
 INTERNET MARKETING & ITS
TOOLS :

Internet marketing, also referred to as I-marketing, web marketing, online

marketing, or e-Marketing, is the marketing of products, or, services over the
Internet. The Internet has brought media to a global audience. The interactive
nature of Internet marketing, both, in terms of providing instant response and
eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. Internet marketing is
sometimes considered to have a broader scope because it not only refers to, such
as, the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media, but also it includes management of
digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM)
systems.

There are various tools/modes to internet marketing. However, choosing the

right one is very important. Each of them has its own advantages and
disadvantages. Choosing modes mainly depends upon the kind of product you
have and your target audience. Below are list and an extensive analysis on the
various tools of internet marketing:

• SEO
• Social Media Marketing
• E-mail Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• Banner Advertising/ Ads
• Rich Media Marketing
• B2B Web Portals
 SEARCH ENGINE
OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

WHAT ARE SEARCH ENGINES?

A web search engine is a tool designed to search for information on the World
Wide Web. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly
called hits. The information may consist of web pages, images, information and
other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in databases
or open directories. Unlike Web directories, which are maintained by human
editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic
and human input.

FACTS ABOUT SEARCH ENGINES

➢ 84.8% of Internet users utilize search engines to find web sites.*GVU Users
Survey
➢ 71% of all Internet surfers reach web sites through Search Engines.*Nielson Media
➢ Research has proven that 93% of global consumers use search engines to
find and access websites. *Forrester Research
➢ 85% of qualified Internet traffic is driven through search engines, however 75%
of search engines users never scroll past the 4th page of results *Georgia
Institute of Technology: Seventh WWW User Survey
➢ 55% of all Internet sales result from buyers finding the sellers website through
search engines.
➢ Search Engine Marketing was ranked as the #1 website promotional method
used by e-Commerce sites. *ActivMedia Research
➢ 73% of global chief executives (CEOs, CIO's, etc.), say that they prefer .
Avoid using frames

While it is possible to provide workarounds that allow search engine robots to

crawl frame based sites, frames will still cause problems for the people who find
your site through search engines.

When somebody follows the link from a search result listing to a frame based site,
they will land on an orphaned document, outside of its parent frameset. This is
very likely to cause confusion, since in many cases vital parts of the site, like
navigational links, will be absent.

Use Translations:

Translations are basically used to convert the language for the user to read. This
helps increasing the pages on your site as well as increases the traffic through
search engines.

Some search engines use the contents of the Meta description element to
describe your site in their search result listings, so if possible, make its contents
unique and descriptive for every document.

Loading Time & Compatibility:

Make Sure your Site is compatible on all browsers and loads quickly.
 E-mail Marketing
Ethical methods of gathering e-mail addresses are through on-line registration
built into your corporate Web sites, or requests for information forms that request
submission to your opt-in lists.

An alternative is to purchase lists of customer e-mail addresses indexed by

special interests from a private company such as 'Postmaster Direct' or even use
PC softwares for mass e-mailing. It is a form of direct marketing which uses
electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising
messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential
or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. However, the term
is usually used to refer to:

➢ Sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a

merchant with its current or old customers and to encourage customer
loyalty and repeat business.

➢ Sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or

convincing old customers to buy something immediately.

➢ Adding advertisements in e-mails sent by other companies to their

customers.

Advantages

1. Compared to other media investments such as direct mail or printed

newsletters, it isless expensive.
2. Return on investment has proven to be high when done properly.
3. It is instant and quick as opposed to a mailed advertisement; an e-mail arrives
in a fewseconds or minutes.
 Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing enables you to increase online sales by promoting your

products and services through a network of Affiliate sites on a payment-by-results
basis.

It also provides the opportunity to generate additional revenue by exploiting your

site's own content to promote the products and services of other online
Merchants.

A Merchant recruits content sites to partner with them as Affiliates in exchange

for commissions. A common third party provider such as Commission Junction
can be used.

The Merchant provides their advertising banners and links to their Affiliates and
assigns a commission for each click-through to their site, subscription to their
service, or purchase of their products that is generated from those links.

Affiliates place the tracking code for these ads and links on their Web sites. This
allows clickthrough's to be tracked online and commissions to be calculated. If a
product or service is purchased, the customer pays the Merchant directly and the
Affiliate is paid a commission for that transaction. The dating giant
adultfriendfinder.com has used this strategy to the maximum and has earned
millions of dollars by proper implementation of this strategy.

Pros and cons

Merchants favour affiliate marketing because in most cases it uses a "pay for
performance" model, meaning that the merchant does not incur a marketing
expense unless results are accrued (excluding any initial setup cost). Some
businesses owe much of their success to this marketing technique, a notable
example being Amazon.com. Unlike display advertising, however, affiliate
marketing is not easily scalable.
 Banner Advertising

Banner advertising can play an extremely important role within your website
strategy. One can use banner advertising as a means of promoting its own
products and services, raising awareness, or as a way of generating revenue by
selling advertising space on your own website.

Purchasing Advertising: There are currently two widely recognized methods of

purchasing banner advertising. The rates for these are usually quoted on a cost
per thousand basis or (CPM). The rates you pay can vary tremendously as there
is currently no standard price model - so be prepared to negotiate!

➢ Pay-Per-Impression: This method of purchasing banner advertising is based on

a charge for the number of times someone sees your banner. There are no
guarantees as to how many visitors will come to your site as a result of seeing
your banner; you are simply paying for the number of times your banner is
displayed. Websites that offer such programs include paypopup.com and
adclicksor.com
➢ Pay-Per-Visitor: This method of purchasing banner advertising is based on a
charge
for the number of times someone visits your site as a result of clicking on your
banner. This is a better method of purchasing banner advertising as you are only
paying for results, although expect to pay a premium.
➢ Pay-Per-Click: The revenue model of the Internet giant google.com has its very
own service which offers certain share of the profit that it makes by the click-
through that a website generates from its adsense codes. The revenue model is
known as Google adsense and almost every successful website uses this model
to make profits. The Google adsense ads can be seen on websites like Times of
India, Moneycontrol.com, ManagementParadise.com and a lot many other
reputed websites. Google earns more than y 90% of its revenues from ads. There
are many other ad agencies like Adbrite and Yahoo Ads.
➢ Branding. While CTR and cost per sale relate to direct marketing objectives,
another way of looking at banner ads is as "branding" tools. They create brand
awareness, and a brand image in the viewer's mind, whether or not the viewer
clicks on the ad. Branding is very difficult to measure, but can be very powerful.
 Sales Promotion

Employing methods to stimulate sales through immediate or delayed incentives

to the customer. If the incentive is attractive, the price: value ratio is adjusted
favourably enough to affect a sale. This strategy should integrate with the overall
marketing mix to balance extra sales with long-term profit motives. Examples of
sales promotion strategies are:

➢ Sampling - offering product samples, electronically.

➢ Bonus offers - offering additional goods or services when making single
purchases(e.g. buy-one-get-one-free).
➢ Limited time offers - attracting visitors to return to a Web site.
➢ Games with prizes: Useful to keep people coming back to Web sites.
➢ Cross-product sampling: When a customer makes a purchase they have an
opportunity to try out another company's product/service. Also, the customer
may have the opportunity to try out more than one company's product/service
while testing another. Useful for complementary products/services.
➢ Feature pricing: providing special pricing to those that order electronically.
➢ Cross-promotions with other companies’ products/services - Buy a
company's product/service and get a coupon for another company's
product/service.

Publicity: The goal of publicity is to have others talk about the small business or
its products. It can be inexpensive or even free and it may have the potential to
generate far more in sales than even a well executed advertising plan. For e.g.
promoting mobile handsets by way of issuing press releases on big technology
sites like Engadget.

Promotional Publications: Facilitate customer education, with the intention of

building corporate image and even brand awareness, the small business may
sponsor and/or publish its own electronic magazine on the Web, e-mail, etc.
These are useful in fields where the customer needs information to develop
sufficient knowledge for movement through the first three stages of the sales
process of awareness, interest, and desire.
 WHY SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IS GAINING
IMPORTANCE?
SOME INTERESTING FACTS
1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….98% of them have joined a
social network
2. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
3. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
4. Years to Reach 50 million Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4
Years),iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 month.
5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world's 4th largest between the
United States and Indonesia
6. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online
students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
7. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
8. 80 % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
9. 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update
anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
10. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
11. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
12. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word
of mouth now becomes world of mouth
13. 25% of search results for the World's Top 20 largest brands are links to user-
generated content
14. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
15. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services
than howGoogle ranks them
16. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
17. Only 14% people trust advertisements
18. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
19. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their
phone
20. According to Jeff Bezos 70% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle
when available
21. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation
because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
 B2B WEB PORTALS

B2B is "business to business", B2B Website Portal is one emarket place for
suppliers, manufacturers, factory sellers, wholesalers, exporters to post trade
leads to find importers, buyers and buying leads. It is also one online directory for
buyers and importers to find suppliers for their products.

In a word, B2B Website Portal is one marketplace for ecommerce users to Internet
Marketing & E-commerce Promotion Online for their products and service.

B2B Website Portal is most popular with countries with huge number of
manufacturers to export, especially in Asian countries, like China, India, and
South- Korea who have a big manufacturing sectors. One of the most important
and largest B2B Website Portal is Alibaba in China; it is one comprehensive and
household b2b in the world.
In Asia, the B2B website portals are most successful; they act as one of the most
effective method of Internet Marketing & E-commerce Promotion Online for
manufacturers and ecommerce sellers to promote their large amount of products.
Just for this demand or business opportunity, there comes some famous B2B
trade website portal through the world, like alibaba, ec21, tradekey, ecplaza and
so on.
All those websites are comprehensive and include a wide range of product
categories and industry sectors, almost related to every industry. They are
meaningful to global trade, or rather to manufacturers, suppliers, exporters,
wholesaler, buyers, and importers. Above all, they are preferred by small and
medium companies (SMEs) begin their e-commerce solution and website
marketing.
B2B Website Portal benefits supplier and purchaser, exporters and importers,
sellers and buyers.
For global buyers, they could find their ideal suppliers and manufacturers and
post their buying trade leads or threads in these B2B sites, because there are so
many suppliers available to global buyers in these ecommerce market. Meanwhile
the suppliers are site's member or user, they use every convenient internet
marketing tool
 ADVANTAGES &
DISADVANTAGES OF WEB B2B
PORTALS

Advantages:
➢ Great for Small and Medium Sized businesses
➢ Saves Cost
➢ Substitute to Banner Ads
➢ Alternative to owning and maintainance of a website
➢ Relevant Clients and People come to your site
➢ Direct Queries from Clients
➢ Saves Time
➢ Boosts Sales

Disadvantages:
➢ Can be expensive
➢ Limited scope of products ( Manufacturers, Traders , Dealers
➢ Highly competitive
 E-COMMERCE AND ONLINE
SHOPPING

Ever imagined buying your next Car online? Or selling your old, unwanted music
system to someone sitting 1500kms away? Or doing a price comparison from
dealers all over India before buying a cell phone? If not, welcome to new era of
retailing.

In today's competitive world one thing that has become scarce in our lives is -
'TIME'. Time has become the most important commodity for working as well as
non-working segment of our society. In this age of growing popularity of shopping
malls due to time and resources constraint, sometimes it becomes difficult to
physically go out. Shopping is inevitable for everyone whether we like it or not, as
shopping is done right from basic commodities to luxury goods. Hence the new
concept that enables us to do shopping at a click of a mouse is 'Online
shopping'.

Online shopping can be defined as - The process of viewing, buying/selling and

ordering of goods or services done through electronic medium for instance a
website, also the mode of payment is done through electronic means with credit
card or an established credit account is known as online shopping.

Nielsen has published new statistics on the overall online shopping trends - Over
875 Million Consumers Have Shopped Online - the Number of Internet Shoppers
Up 40% in Two Years (World)
 Growth of ecommerce in India
Growth of Internet Usage has already been explained to in the stats above. This
growth of Internet Usage has undoubtedly boosted e-commerce all over the
world and India too. Electronic commerce or e-commerce which means buying
and selling of products or services over Internet or other electronic or computer
networks has dramatically grown in India since the spread of Internet. Though e-
commerce in India is at a very nascent stage compared to western world, if you
compare it with the last year it has grown over a large extent. Bikky Khosla, CEO
of India's largest business-to-business (B2B) portal Tradeindia which is
maintained and promoted by Infocom Network Ltd, recently made a statement
that e-commerce transactions in India is growing at a rate of 30-40% and in
expected to reach $100 billion figure soon.

Deeper penetration of Internet has broken various barriers and brought

geographically diverse markets on a common platform. E-trading not only helps
cut down costs in terms of manpower and time involved in transaction in the
export-import business, but is environment friendly too.

Credit cards transactions, Railway and Airlines have played a vital role in e-
commerce transactions in India. In near future, e-commerce is going to play a
major role in multimedia, entertainment and fashion industry. Gucci Co. an Italian
iconic fashion and leather goods label is eager to make its hold in India after
growing strong in China.

Along with e-commerce mobile-commerce is also spreading among India users,

specially in the banking sector.
A Study reveals the following:
➢ e-Commerce transactions crossed the Rs.2300 crore milestone in 2006-
07, a jump of around 300 percent from the 2004-05 figure of Rs.570 crore
➢ The average number of online transactions has increased from 4.4 lakhs in
2004- 05 to around 7.95 lakhs per month in 2005-06, a growth of a healthy
80 percent and expected to increase by 12 times by end of 2010.
➢ Online transactions crossed $100billlion in the year 2008-09
➢ Besides individuals, even businesses have been quick to embrace the
Internet. Most organizations, including large and SME companies have a
Web presence
➢ SMEs in fact, have found the Internet a viable platform for establishing their
brand at lowered infrastructure and marketing costs.

Source: HindustanTimes.com

India's Tier II towns and cities are experiencing an increase in their online
retailing activity and increased transactional values.

Placing the issue in perspective, Gautam Thakar, Country Manager of eBay said
in a NASCOM seminar that consumers were trading goods worth almost three
crore rupees every day, across the globe. “Following the burst of innovation in
e- Commerce during the 1995-2000 phase and the subsequent dot com bust,
we are now experiencing renewed momentum in the online business world,” Mr.
Thakar added.

At the end of the day, there is a growing realization that the opportunities
presented by e-Commerce are big and will get bigger. Provided applications of
mass usage are developed and made available, e-Commerce can truly take off
in India. The country's citizens needed easier access to the Net, navigation and
ease-of-use, factors that are critical for the quick adoption of e-Commerce.
Convenient and secure modes of payment are a must, as is the need to explore
other facets of e-Commerce such as mobile commerce. With the growth of e-
commerce the IT laws in India also needs a much needed upgrade.
How Online Shopping works

Diagram

Payment Modes
• Debit and Credit Cards
• Cheque/ Demand Drafts
• E-Cheque
• Cash on Delivery
• Online Money Transfer
• Mobile Payment
• Direct Deposit
• Paypal
 E-ticketing
An electronic ticket or e-ticket is used to represent the purchase of a seat on a
passenger airline, railways, movies, hotels etc online through a website. Airline
ticket has rapidly replaced the old multi-layered paper tickets from close to 0% to
100% in about 10 years and became mandatory for IATA members. E-tickets are
also available for some entertainment venues like movies, plays etc.

Once a reservation is made, an e-ticket exists only as a digital record in the

computers. Customers usually print out a copy of their receipt which contains the
record locator or reservation number and the e-ticket number.

According to critical acclaim, Mr. Joel R. Goheen is recognized as the Inventor of

Electronic Ticketing in the Airline Industry, an industry where global electronic
ticket sales (the industry standard) accounts for over $400 Billion (US) a year
(2007). See Patents for Electronic Ticketing Inventions in the Airline Industry.
Electronic tickets have also been introduced and are successful in road, urban or
rail public transport as well.

Growth Of E-Ticketing in India:

Today, e-ticketing in India is becoming the preferred mechanism for booking

tickets be it air tickets, railways or movies. Some of the statistics below speak
volumes about the growth of e-ticketing in transportation in India.

• The online passenger reservation site of Indian Railway Catering and

TourismCorporation Ltd's (IRCTC) sales from the Internet booking of train
tickets in a single
month (August 2007) totted up to a staggering 12,90,608 tickets generating
revenuesof Rs 110 crores.
• Direct online ticketing now accounts for 40 percent of the tickets sold at most
airlines.
Air Deccan does an average of Rs 30 million worth of transactions per day.
• 43,020 people book tickets online every day with IRCTC generating an income of
Rs
3.6 crores daily in August Its observed that 15 percent of ticket sales are through
e- ticketing and it will double this number by end 2008.
• Direct online ticketing now accounts for 40 percent of tickets sold at most airlines
• E-ticket penetration grew from a measly 10 percent in 2005 to 65 percent
in 2006. Months
• In August and September 2007, 6.3 lakh e-tickets worth Rs 56.63 crores were
booked
using credit cards while 3.76 lakhs e-tickets worth Rs 28.5 crores were booked
through debit cards and Net banking.

Also there has been a considerable growth of e-ticketing in other industries like
movies. Some interesting statistics related to online movie ticket booking in India:
Online movie ticket bookings doubled in the first 6 months of 2007 from 4-5%
to 10% of total revenue for theatre chains and are currently accounts for more
than 15% on an average. Mumbai and Delhi account for 58% of purchases of
Movie Tickets Online as they have the highest density of Multiplexes followed by
Bangalore (9%), Hyderabad (7%), Chennai (6%), Kolkata (5%), and Ahmedabad
(2%). With more and more multiplex infrastructure being groomed across the
country, this latent demand will have to be met by Multiplex owners.

These are exciting times for Indian e-ticketing. Sales are robust and large
corporations and enterprises are pulling out all the stops in their attempts to grow
online sales. Online ticketing has caught on with high acceptance in the Indian
market. There are many vendors who are trying to capture this space and large
corporations are firmly behind online ticketing. Each month more and more
passengers are booking their tickets through the Internet indicating that the
popularity of online reservations is still in the growth phase.
Challenges in Internet Marketing

Competition:
Internet provides a very limited entry barrier to get started with. Hence there is a
lot of competition out there already and it's only going to get more competitive. So
as a marketer you need to choose the right medium to market your product on
the basis of the product features. Also you need a have a sound marketing
strategy and have a plan on how to market your product as your competitors are
doing it. You cannot rely completely on branch of Internet Marketing and need to
frame a marketing plan taking a combination of two or three mediums. For e.g.
for big companies who are looking for Branding, Social Media and SEO are
better, For manufacturing companies Ads, Email and b2b portals are better.

Internet Speeds and Penetration:

Though Internet has reached billions of users, the penetration is still low. It still
has to catch up with the other forms like TV, Radio etc which have a wider reach
and more importantly for many brands the internet audience might not be the right
consumers or internet being the wrong place to approach the customer.

The internet speeds in lesser developed countries are quite low upto (128kbps-1
mbps) compared to other countries which have speed of around 16 mbps
regularly. Also technology like 3G and Wimax for high speed internet are only
available in developed countries like the US and UK. Speed is required as today
sites require higher speeds for browsing, download videos, songs, files etc

Reliability / Trust & Safety:

As a customer sometimes feels cheated and irritated by those ads as they often
mis- directed So as a marketer you should be conscious of the fact that you should
post relevant ads and do not make false promises to get ad-clicks.
Also there is an increase in number of frauds in banking transactions, shopping
done by people which leaves a feeling of mistrust amongst buyers.
Too technical
Things can get real technical on the internet marketing and it's difficult for the
normal marketer to understand all the terms and stuff on internet marketing.
Therefore, he has to hire an internet marketing expert who does all the work for
him. However, there is a lack of such individuals and there are false promises
made by people who call themselves a SEO expert Or a SMM expert. It's very
hard for an average marketer to filter good internet practices and judge the quality
of an digital marketing agency. So again the marketer/brand can get cheated.

Requires Hard Work, Effort and Time

(Maintenance)
No matter if you hire an expert or do internet marketing on your own you need to
put a lot of time and hard-work on it. It also requires a lot of maintenance and
supervision as there are constant changes and upgradations being done by
search engines and social media platforms. So you need to aware and updated
about all the happening and changes in the technical fields to be successful.

No matter how much effort you put into Internet Marketing, there is no proper
successful formula and no guarantee that you will succeed in marketing your
product or increase sales through internet marketing. Without proper knowledge
and guidance one can end up burning up loads of cash in this medium.
 Traditional Marketing V/s Internet
Marketing

Marketing over the years more so recently has started being used
interchangeably with advertising. Now since the explosion of the internet;
advertising paradigms have been constantly changing.

The first Web advertisement was placed on the Hot Wired web site in October
1994. AT&T, MCI, Sprint, Volvo, Club Med, ZIMA were the first to try it out and
the Internet advertising has come a long way since then. Here, I would attempt to
compare Internet Marketing with our good old traditional marketing.

1. Internet Marketing is More Measureable – Branding is important and traditional

marketing does have benefits when it comes to branding. However, marketers
today are smarter and more sophisticated. They see the value of measuring
results and brand awareness is more difficult to measure then real visitors to your
website and real conversions. Marketers want to make sure every penny is spent
wisely. Internet marketing allows you to see exactly what you are paying for.
Traditional marketing takes a little more trust that the impact of your efforts is
helping your bottom line. With Internet marketing you can see real facts and
every detail that leads to reaching your goals and determine your ROI.

2. Internet Marketing Makes Strategic Decisions Based on Facts – Internet

marketing can make decisions based on detailed analytics. You can have the
smartest and most talented traditional agency with great ideas and plenty of
experience, but they will have a difficult time showing real data that leads to
achieving your goals. They will also build out a campaign and not be able to
adjust it on the fly based on the public's response. The best way to really know
how effective your marketing approach is to see exactly what the audience is
responding positively too. Internet marketing allows you to study every detail
about your audience in real time. You can study data from every phase in your
conversion funnel that includes: how people found your website; what they do
once they are on your site; and what led to your conversations.
3. Internet Marketing Is Better at Reaching Your Target Audience – Traditional
marketing is known for its reach to a mass audience. There are ways that
traditional marketing can target certain demographics depending on a television
channel or show, radio station genre or industry magazine. However, traditional
marketing will never be able to target as precisely as Internet marketing. With
Internet marketing you can target even the smallest audience based on a variety
of things. Internet marketing also does a great job of targeting your advertising
spend so that you know all of your money is being spent in the most effective
way.

4. Internet Marketing is a Constant Source – When you hear or see a television

or radio ad it is there one minute and then it is gone. If you catch an ad in
passing and you missed some information you cannot go back and review it. Print
is a little better for this but newspapers and magazines do get thrown out after a
week or month. Internet marketing provides you a permanent address online that
people can visit anytime they want. Even if someone does not know about your
company they can do searches based on what you offer and find you in the
search engines.

5. Internet Marketing Provides Better Word-of-Mouth – Word-of-mouth is still the

most effective marketing for producing conversions. Social Media is an aspect of
Internet marketing that allows people to build a community and let others spread
positive feedback about your product or service. When you develop evangelists
for your company, with Social Media Marketing, your message will be spread
quickly because more people are speaking for you. People will normally trust
word-of-mouth much more than traditional ads that tries to convince you about
the benefits of a product or service.

6. Internet Marketing Can Increase Conversions More – No matter what your

goal, Internet marketing can increase your conversions month after month. The
reason Internet marketing is more effective at delivering conversions is that you
can study every detail of what is working and what might not be working. It takes
the guessing game out of it. You can continue to place more emphasis on the
tactics that are working and eliminate anything that is not effective. Internet
marketing also provides an environment where you can safely test new ideas so
that you are always pushing to improve your campaign's performance. Traditional
marketing develops a campaign and then hopes that it will work.
7. Internet Marketing is more trackable – Online marketing makes tracking easy.
You can keep tabs on where your visitors come from, store relevant information
about their spending, their behaviours, and their demographics. All of this better
enables your company to make the most of Internet marketing as you are afforded
an easy way to learn more about your existing and potential clients. More
importantly, you'll very quickly get a clear picture of what works for your company
online.

But every coin has two sides and Internet Marketing also has its
disadvantages compared to Traditional Marketing.

Disadvantages:

Difficulty in Attracting Customers

Small business may not have the resources to pay for paid directory inclusion,
pay per click inclusions and often have to rely solely on search engine optimisation
or word of mouth to drive traffic to their sites. With millions of businesses selling
the same product and services, competing with more established businesses
can be frustrating and costly venture for small business.

On the other hand, larger companies can offer promotions, pay for directory
inclusions, implement pay per click campaigns as well as employ the “who is who”
in internet marketing to develop campaigns that generate traffic and leads.
Therefore traditional marketing seems better here as it definitely gives your
product visibility and attracts more customers compared to internet marketing

Difficulty in Evaluating Legitimacy of Transaction

Another notable disadvantage of doing promoting businesses online is that it may

be difficult for the businesspersons and consumers to thoroughly evaluate the
legitimacy of a transaction. Small businesses are particularly vulnerable to thieves
using stolen credit cards and stolen information to do online transaction.

With Internet credit card and identity fraud on the rise, small businesses are
forced tofinance costly security measures to reduce their vulnerability to
fraudulent transactions.
Salespersons and Customers are Isolated

Another disadvantage of promotion via the Internet is that the customers and
businesspersons are isolated. There is little personal contact between customer
and salesperson prior to and after the sales is closed. Thus, the prospect for
repeat sales may thus be diminished. Entrepreneurs are therefore compelled to
adopt marketing strategies to drive online users back to their site.

Internet Marketing can get too Technical

Internet Marketing requires a lot of knowledge and technical knowhow or else you
can be fooled by your consultant you have hired. Also it requires a lot of time
and the results are not instant. However, it is much easier to understand
traditional marketing for a layman.

However, Internet Marketing when comparing to Traditional Marketing it appears

that the advantages of Internet promotion far exceed the disadvantages. You
can adjust your campaign much easier to produce the best results. Analytics are
the core reason why more people are switching from traditional marketing to
Internet marketing. You can track real facts for every element of your campaign.
This will show you exactly what you are getting for your money. With adequate
knowledge, entrepreneur can benefit significantly from Internet promotion,
especially small business owners. Also there is a huge dependability on the type
of product you have to choose the medium.

More and more, the growth and outreach of the Internet's, its ease and
accessibility for customers is becoming inevitable. Small business would
therefore be well advised to start their web advertising function in order to improve
their competitiveness online.
 Summary

Internet Marketing : Traditional Marketing:

Targeted Marketing Non- Targeted Marketing
Economical and fast way Expensive and takes more time to
to promote
promote product. product.
Cost-Effective for Expensive and time consuming process
promoting for
product globally traditional marketing.
Your product or service is 24 That is not possible in traditional
X 7 advertising marketing.

Effective mode of Effective mode of tracking investment

tracking is not possible.
investment
 FUTURE OF INTERNET
MARKETING

As the Internet continues to grow, the future of online marketing is a much

discussed subject. There is no doubt that the future of online marketing looks
very bright. As more people join up with digital revolution, e-commerce continues
to grow. Still, one can't help but acknowledge the fact that Internet users are
becoming more sophisticated, particularly as a younger generation moves into
adulthood.

Internet is growing much faster than ever before, the more and more user
generated content is flooding the internet. The Internet is changing the way we
do business — the way we market, sell, service, distribute, communicate, and
work. Businesses are already beginning to communicate with customers,
distributors, suppliers, shareholders, and employees in a way that is truly one-to-
one and real-time. “Personalized” web sites are delivering tailored messages to
an infinite number of target markets. These sites can change based on the
user's buying and surfing habits, past usage of the site, demographics,
relationship to the company, and a multitude of other attributes which could be
collected from the users online or culled from corporate legacy databases. The
Internet has also become the most economical distribution system of information
available.

Web sites that run into the millions of dollars to build and maintain, and massive
data warehouses about consumers that are networked together across
companies and continents. Imagine, personal (software) agents will surf the Web
in our place, and thus Web sites of future will be designed more for our agents
than for us. And privacy will be a thing of the past: web sites will know your buying
patterns, your interests, your salary, your level of education, even your credit
record.

However, The Internet is not just a “tool” for business. It's not just another form of
media. The Internet is becoming OUR LIVES.
mentioned earlier – the instant millionaires and billionaires generated from stock
options, buyouts, and IPOs.

But that's all changing quickly. The media and the world in general, are catching
wind of the fact that millions of people are making money online. Heck, all they
have to do is read the details of Google's earnings reports and pay attention to
the section on their AdSense program. Google is already paying out BILLIONS
of dollars to web site owners.

And as more and more people generate an income from the Internet, more and
more people find out about it. When people fill-out mortgage applications or other
paperwork to explain where their income comes from... In general conversations
at parties, a day job, or even at the local Starbucks… As people ask, “So what
do you do?” more and more people will answer... “I have an Internet business.”

The revolution will begin to grow at a faster and faster pace. The ‘secret' is getting
out and getting out fast… There's no better method for generating income (or
has there been in history up until this point) than to make money from the Internet
– truly while you sleep, even while on vacation where you can still check your
email and run your business from anywhere.

And that too for a very low start-up cost, no technical training, and zero
qualifications. So in a very short amount of time there are going to be thousands
of marketers all fighting to purchase and/or generate the same targeted traffic to
their web sites. They will all be going after the same keywords (even long tail
variation Internet marketers by and large are utilized for selling and marketing to,
a predominantly western audience. Today's web sites, mailing lists, payment
processing systems, and overall way of doing business have evolved around
the needs and wants of target markets in the western world. And any experienced
marketer knows it can be difficult. Despite popular notions that you can start an
Internet business and watch the money roll-in, the reality is that there is a lot of
competition from other webmasters, regardless of the market or type of products
you promote.

Looking ahead, have you considered the impact of even more competition - lots
more? In Asia, in particular China and India, large, well-educated populations, a
lower cost of living with much-improved standards, and more widely available
 Conclusion

On the whole, I feel internet marketing definitely has huge potential and in the
coming years it will be of great importance due to the growing number of users.
However, you cannot ignore the fact that traditional marketing is here to stay for
some more time. It would take a while for the new media to sink in and penetrate
into the vast sphere of of traditional marketing. The need of the hour is to educate
business owners about the growing importance of Internet Marketing.
 BIBLOGRAPHY

• Economic Times
• Alibaba.com
• Nasscom.com
• Wikipedia
• OnlyGizmos.com (Quotes on E-commerce)
• InternetWorldStats.com ( Diagram 1.1 & 1.2)