Since the introduction of the World Wide Web in 1990 it has grown from a means of communicating for physicists to having more than forty million users. This tremendous growth and interest in the Internet can only mean that great opportunities lie ahead for companies and their products.
Digital marketing is changing how businesses are able to get their product to the consumer. It is allowing the channels of distribution to become shorter. In order to understand the channels of distribution and how they are becoming shorter, the concept must be explained. The traditional channels of distribution consist of the product, producer, wholesaler, retailer, and the consumer. This means that first there is a product. Then there has to be someone to produce the product. The product is usually produced in mass quantity. Then the wholesaler purchases the product from the producer and then sells it to the retailer at an increased price.
Consumer Debt
Consumer
… more workers and consumers …The retailer then advertises the product to promote it to the consumer. The retailer also sells the product to the consumer at an increased price. This process makes for very long channels with increased costs of the products.
Digital marketing has changed the flow of distribution channels. It has done this by allowing the channels to become shorter. Products may pass directly from the producer to the consumer, via a digital marketer. This means that instead of having multiple channels in distribution there might just be three. Producer, virtual marketer and consumer. It could also be just producer and consumer (Kleindl, Brad, 1996:10).
One of the ways that digital marketing can shorten the channels of distribution is by eliminating the retailer and the intermediate wholesaler. The producer will be able to deliver the product directly to the consumer with the help of the digital marketer and the...