Technology is becoming more and more necessary in our modern world. The majority of retailers and companies that no longer are registered and appear in local directories and phone books such as the Yellow Pages are growing. This means that companies and retailers will often move to cheaper and more accessible ways of advertising and drawing in consumers such as the internet and social media.
In Australia, the population in 2019 is around 25 million people. Out of those 25 million people 87% use the internet whilst 64% use social media (Digital 2019 in Australia, 2019)This means that in order to reach their consumer base they need to create more of an online presence. This can often be done effectively through social media apps and websites whereas in the past they would have relied heavily on great service to generate word of mouth advertisement, large and expensive advertisements in phone directories and print advertisements in newspaper and magazines.
With more and more people utilising social media, companies need to be tuned into their target audience and utilise social media sites that target their specified target market. For example, a company may want a low cost social media presence to draw in customers and may opt for a lesser known platform such as Twitter which in 2019 had 326 million active users which sounds great but compared to a more well-known and utilised service such as Facebook which had 2271 million active users (Digital 2019 in Australia, 2019), seems to only target a very small share of the market. Companies would have to analyse the data and the weigh up the cost of advertising on more well-known, but more expensive platforms compared to more cost-effective but lesser known platforms.
Companies in the 21st century now need to think critically about their target market and how best to draw them in through an online platform. This is effectively getting rid of paper advertisements in favour of a purely electronic presence.
This also leads onto physical stores being made redundant more commonly. Due to an increased online presence and the ease of online shopping, more and more consumers are opting to purchase directly from their lounge rather than going in-store and making the purchase. Companies now need to create an engaging and captivating online store presence that will lure shoppers away from their competitors and into their store instead. Through this move to more online shopping, companies are now having to compete in a larger market. A local Australian company will now often have to compete with a large scale business in America or China who have the ability to create the same products but for lower prices. This forces smaller online stores to look for and create incentives for people to shop with them rather than larger online retailers.
Reference List
Digital 2019 in Australia. (2019). Retrieved 30 November 2019, from https://wearesocial.com/au/digital-2019-australia?mc_cid=2627112634&mc_eid=632bbf90f7
