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E- Commerce

Running Head: The Changing Role of Customers


Abstract

Customers Rule! The high- tech honeymoon is over and customers are choosing the winners of today and it doesn’t matter whether those businesses operate out of a storefront or reach through a computer screen. The customers today with the advance in e- commerce have evolved and developed into the computer savvy shoppers who want the best deal for the money. To focus on the ever - changing world of customer we must start at the beginning to define the customer relationship with brick and mortar enterprises.

The brick and mortar shops of the past are known for their typically slow but personalized service, complex logistics processes and high operating costs. Customers could walk in to store be greeted by a sales person and then shop- the sales person made small talk, help you with selection and try to up sell you on most any item you choose. The store front shopping experiences are now shaped by technology. In these new times, a busy customer would not want another person to interfere with their shopping experience, a new shopping experience for the customer has arrived. The typical store front experience is fast becoming a thing of the past as business move toward providing a quick, efficient shopping experience while maintaining a brand name of the store front. Traditional store front retailers, that have survived the 1980s and 1990s boom in e- commerce, have in place business plans that boast technology and customer-driven philosophy designed to grow profits and increase share holder value. Target and Wal- Mart are two of these models who have realized that the customer is the focus and changed the strategy of how they take care of the customer. Target has decided to focus on the providing a clean, bright and easy to shop store which it draws in with commercial advertising and modern marketing. While Wal- Mart focuses on being the leader in low price...

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