Inbound Marketing: Practical Aspects of Promoting Goods and Services in E-commerce

Abstract

This paper summarizes the features of the functioning of e-commerce in Ukraine. It has been proven that the activity of e-shops as important subjects of the e-commerce market is under-regulated. This leads to consumer dissatisfaction with service quality in the online environment. The necessity of criteria creation was shown, which give them opportunities to e-shops management improve their service and enhance the level of satisfaction of target consumers, primarily based on the effective use of the newest method of promoting goods and services in e-commerce - inbound marketing on the example of infant nutrition. Rating evaluation of functional characteristics of infant nutrition e-shops was done using methods of multicriteria analysis, namely the COPRAS method. It is determined that the functionality and convenience of the e-shop are the main criteria that shape their competitive advantage. The focus of the paper is concentrated on the building rationale for promotion e-shops with the latest inbound marketing techniques. Peculiarities of using different inbound marketing tools on each stage were defined, which implicate a change of Internet-user status from visitor to promoter. An example of evaluating existing alternatives for promoting e-shop (inbound marketing, outbound marketing, or no promotion, in general, was provided). In particular, the decision-making process for choosing promotional tools for infant nutrition e-shop was schematized with the basis of alternatives evaluation by using one of the most common decision-making tools – decision tree. The economic effectiveness of using inbound marketing tools in comparison with outbound marketing tools was proven. The proposed methodological approach can be used by e-shop management for substantiation of management decisions on optimization of goods and services promotion and will increase the loyalty of target audience and popularize brands in e-commerce. Keywords: COPRAS method, decision-tree, e-commerce, e-shop, inbound marketing, infant nutrition, lead, outbound marketing, promotion.