ELECTRONIC MARKETING AND RETAIL BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

Abstract

The study centered on electronic marketing and retail business performance, drawing our empirical analysis from five randomly selected online retail outlets. Descriptive survey research design was adopted, which involved collection of information by administering questionnaire was used. From the accessible supermarkets a sample of 280 persons were covered made up of 80 management/staff and 200 of their customers, determined statistically by applying Taro Yamane’s formula. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The research questions were analyzed using weighted mean and standard deviation and the hypotheses tested via Z-test statistics. In course of the study it was found that that e-mail significantly enhance retail business market share, since e-mail is more trusted in reaching and building customer relations, The study equally found that POS is significant to retail business sales volume, since it offers traffic to retail stores as to increase sales. The study also found that use of ATM enhances the retail business profitability, since it facilitates customer’s preference of retail outlets. Based on the findings, the study held that there is significant relationship between e-mail usage and retail business market share, that there is significant relationship between POS usage and retail business sales volume, and there is significant relationship between ATM adoption and retail business profitability. Based on the findings and conclusions thereof the following recommendations among others are put forward: Management of every business organization generally and retail outlets in particular should not only acquire internet facilities, but to always embrace and make uses of the facilities such as e-mail, POS, ATM, twitter and other (electronic marketing dimensions) to promote their organizational customer satisfaction and enjoy other benefits attached to it.    Retailers and other organizations should embark on more effective Information Technology (IT) training in order to further enhance their performance.