The Recent Trend for Marketing Mix in the Context of E-Commerce: A Literature Review

Abstract

The influence of internet technology on all aspects of human life, and the convenience offered to customers by the e-commerce firms, in terms of flexibility in time and price, have raised the popularity of e-commerce in the world of business. This article aims to review the relevance of the traditional 4P marketing mix model in the era of digitalization, and discuss how it has been and can be modified to apply perfectly to the e-commerce industry. The pandemic also has caused a dramatic rise in online consumption, and the resulting changing trends in customers’ buying behaviour has reiterated the need for reviewing and reshaping the traditional marketing mix concept to adapt to the new business environment. The study elicits the conflicts that arise when the traditional marketing concepts are applied in the e-commerce environment. Starting from the traditional 4 P’s marketing mix, introduced by Jerome McCarthy in the 1960s, the article considers recent studies that outlined improved models for marketing, specifically in context with e-commerce, and identifies a plethora of factors and concepts in relation to e-commerce marketing. The involvement of science and technology makes the e-commerce industry very dynamic in nature. In addition, a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic has led to drastic changes in the operation of businesses as well as the customers’ purchase behaviour in the last few years. Therefore, it is important to keep constructing new concepts and models that are compatible with the e-commerce industry.