Option Area(s):

Marketing (Consumer & Research Track)
Marketing (Research & Consultant Track)
E-Business Option

Course Description :

The goal of the course is to jointly investigate with students the fundamentals of Electronic Commerce so that they can better understand and evaluate the major changes occurring in marketing as a result of the expansion of the Internet. The course is organized into two parts focused on: 1) Business Webs and Models; and, 2) Customer Management.

1. Most traditional business models rely almost exclusively on posted prices by a limited number of sellers. With significant reductions in e-search and transactions, the internet already has spurred the development of numerous new business models where not only sellers post prices (e.g., Amazon) but so do buyers, both statically (e.g., Priceline) and interactively (e.g., eBay). Enthusiasts of e-commerce argue that these new business models can dramatically increase efficiency by appropriately matching buyers’ willingness-to-pay with sellers’ willingness-to-sell. In this course, we will evaluate several of these business models based on a set of performance metrics (e.g., profit, social surplus, average price, and etc.)

2. In addition, the Internet is changing the way that many marketers reach and interact with consumers. However, as more and more firms jump on the “internet bandwagon” to increase their brand capital, it is increasingly difficult to catch the scarce attention of customers. As this “share of mind and attention” war intensifies, firms must better understand customer web psychology and their web-surfing behaviors. This is perhaps the most challenging problem for traditional firms that wish to transfer their brand capital from brick to click environment. In this course we will discuss consumer on-line behavior implications for how firms may want to structure interactions with their consumers.

In sum, we will study simple but powerful economic theories and examine empirical data to investigate strengths and weaknesses of several internet-based business models. We will also learn several principles on web psychology and the ways they can be applied to enhance things such as brand equity, consumer trust, and consumer satisfaction.

Prerequisites :

None