How Internet changed the retail buying process

INTRODUCTION

Internet has grown rapidly in the past few years, the use of the Internet in business-to-business has changed the way in retail buying process. In general, every buyer will go through process which include Identification of Need, Product criteria required, Selection of Supplier, Order Specification and Performance review. With the grown in the use of internet, retail buying process are greatly influenced. One of the greatest potential of the internet is the way how communication and collaboration changed between buyers and suppliers. As there are very few boundaries on the internet, anyone can share informations much more rapidly and effectively through various use in social media tools. Second, changed the way how buyers source for their suppliers. Third, how the buyers now can reduce costs on behalf of the organization. However, there are also some factors that are not influence by the growth of the internet. These factors include the product and color trends, product-life-cycle, seasonal products and duration in delivery.

FINDINGS

Five stages of a retail buying process:

Identification of Need
In general, a buyer first need to establish a consumers needs in order to supply that category of consumers with products they desire. The need in the market needs to be determine first. For example, if there is a need for guitars that needs to be established. The buyer needs to determine what types of guitar would best suite their target customer, then the process of getting the guitar to the store. Following by the identification of product demand from both existing customers and non-customer. In the past with no internet; no email, the buyers need to get informations regarding products and customers through the use of phone-calls, fax machine or feedback forms from the store managers. Also, a buyer needs to visit the sales floor so as to understanding the consumer buying behavior by interacting with the in-store shoppers. By doing these, can