Re‐surfing W3: Research Perspectives on Marketing Communication and Buyer Behaviour on the Worldwide Web

Abstract

The Worldwide Web (W3 or WWW), the multimedia part of the Internet, has recently gained the attention of academic and practising marketers. As firms of all sizes scramble to establish Web sites, there is much speculation as to the Web's role in marketing communication specifically and in marketing generally, and how it will affect buyer (surfer) behaviour. What research has been done so far has been mainly descriptive, perhaps in the absence of a more formal agenda. This study briefly describes the Web in non‐technical terms, and then attempts to integrate it into well‐established models of buyer behaviour and marketing communication. From this basis, areas for further re‐surfing (i.e. researching) are identified from three perspectives: the buyer's, the seller's and the theorist's.