Marketing channels for e-commerce in emerging markets

Abstract

This work intends to sensitize the readers about the importance and relevance of making right channel strategy for e-commerce businesses, especially in emerging markets. We have tried to provide the guidelines by motivating established theoretical strategic models, which have been time tested for their applicability, and relating them to how prudent decisions about channel members can be made for ensuring better business results. Evaluating the strategy through lenses of transaction costs, power dynamics and conflict or relationship marketing perspective provides an holistic thinking process to approach the common dilemmas, like to contract or internally organize or drafting the mutual expectations etc., and make thoughtful and informed decisions, rather than going with market norms of what is the 'trend' about such practices. However, it is important to integrate such channel decisions with overall strategy of the e-commerce business, so that it flows from key strategic direction and is aligned with strategies of product, pricing, communication etc. If the alignment between the strategies is missing, even a good individual functional strategy may not work in optimum manner.