CIS 434 Module 1 The Internet and Marketing Strategy Example

A River Shop With a Website: What the Internet Changes in the Marketing Strategy of a Missoula Fly Shop

Student Name

Business Administration Program, Aspen University

CIS 434: Internet Marketing

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

A River Shop With a Website: What the Internet Changes in the Marketing Strategy of a Missoula Fly Shop

Rattlesnake Creek Fly Shop sits two blocks from the Clark Fork River in Missoula, Montana. It sells rods, reels, waders and thousands of flies, runs guided float trips on the Clark Fork, Bitterroot and Blackfoot rivers and teaches fly-tying in winter. Of its $2.1 million in yearly sales, half comes through the store, $620,000 from guided trips, $120,000 from classes and $310,000 from a website that the owner built eight years ago and has barely changed. The owner asks whether the internet is a sideline or a reason to rethink how the shop markets itself. This paper answers that question. Rattlesnake Creek is invented for this course, and so are its sales figures.

A Strategy, Not a Channel

Mohammed et al. (2003) argued that the internet should be treated as part of a firm's marketing strategy rather than as one more place to advertise. Their framework moves through seven stages, from framing the market opportunity to evaluating the marketing program, and rests on two properties of networked media. Interactivity means the firm and the customer can exchange information in both directions, quickly and at low cost. Individuality means the firm can shape its offer and message for each customer instead of for an average one. A strategy built on these properties asks how the shop's relationship with customers could change, not merely where to place an advertisement.

What the Web Did to Communication

Hoffman and Novak (1996) described the commercial web as a new kind of medium. Traditional mass media follow a one-to-many model, in which a firm sends the same message to a passive audience. On the web, communication runs many-to-many: customers interact with the medium itself, with firms and with each other, and they can create content as well as receive it. Hoffman and Novak suggested that marketing in such an environment would depend on engaging customers in experiences they chose, which they described with the idea of flow, a state of absorption in navigation.

For the shop, the many-to-many model is already visible. Anglers post river reports and photographs, argue about fly patterns in forums and decide where to fish and which guide to hire from what other anglers say. The shop's printed river report, taped to the door each morning, reaches a few dozen people; the same report online could reach thousands and invite replies.

What the Web Did to Price

Brynjolfsson and Smith (2000) compared prices for books and CDs sold by internet and conventional retailers. Prices online were lower on average, and internet retailers changed prices in much smaller steps, consistent with lower costs of adjusting a price. But prices for identical items still varied widely between online sellers, which suggested that the internet had not created frictionless competition and that trust, brand and service still mattered to buyers.

That finding matters for Rattlesnake Creek. A national retailer can undercut the shop on a rod or a reel, and a customer can check in seconds. Flies tied for local rivers, advice from guides who fished that morning and a trip on the Blackfoot are not easily compared, and those are where the shop's prices hold.

Five Shifts in Strategy

What Does Not Change

The internet does not change why anglers come to the shop: guides who know where fish are feeding this week and staff who can tie a fly to match a hatch. A website cannot replace a day on the river. The strategic question is how the internet can carry that expertise to more people and keep them connected between trips, without diluting what makes it valuable. The shop's online sales already show the potential: most come from past guided clients who want the flies their guide used. A customer in Ohio who fished the Blackfoot with a guide three summers ago still orders the same dozen stoneflies every May, and the order often comes with a question about water levels that a guide answers by e-mail.

Risks of Going Further Online

More online sales bring their own costs and risks. Shipping flies is cheap, but shipping waders and returning ill-fitting ones is not. Customers who buy online may stop visiting the store, where staff turn small purchases into trips. And a national audience brings national competitors into every price comparison. The strategy should therefore lead with what only the shop can offer and keep commodity products mainly in the store.

The Seven Stages Applied

Conclusion

For Rattlesnake Creek, the internet is a reason to rethink strategy, not a sideline. Hoffman and Novak show that customers now talk to the shop and to each other, and Brynjolfsson and Smith show that the web makes commodity prices visible while leaving room for expertise and trust. Using interactivity and individuality, the shop can carry its local knowledge to anglers across the country and keep them connected between trips; the rest of the course applies the seven stages to that aim.

References

Brynjolfsson, E., & Smith, M. D. (2000). Frictionless commerce? A comparison of Internet and conventional retailers. Management Science, 46(4), 563-585. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.46.4.563.12061

Hoffman, D. L., & Novak, T. P. (1996). Marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments: Conceptual foundations. Journal of Marketing, 60(3), 50-68. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299606000304

Mohammed, R. A., Fisher, R. J., Jaworski, B. J., & Paddison, G. J. (2003). Internet marketing: Building advantage in a networked economy (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill/Irwin.