1. THE INTERNET-A MODERN FORM OF SALES
PROMOTION
Ana-Maria AVRAM
The Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania
ABSTRACT
Internet is the new means of communication of a new era in the world’s history. World Wibe
Web(WWW) and the electronic commerce turned fast in forces of the great changes from our
society, bringing with them lots of challenges and new opportunities.
This paper aims to present and analyze the machanisms that are at the base of the electronic
commerce, the advantages and disadvantages of this form of trade and its importance in the
future.
The digital economy is an economy which developes specific forms, the electronic commerce
being the most used aplicative form of the Internet tehnology. In the scientific literature, the
electronic commerce is present as beeing that activity which allows the electronic performing
of transactions bewteen organisations and individs, and the electronic business refers to the
electronic performing and the electronic administration, but of all the activites and process of
a business.
Keywords: Internet, site, advertising, suppliers, payment
JEL Classification: L81
Paper type: Research paper
Introduction
Internet can be considered, on the whole, a set of protocols of communications,
ways to use and executed functions, a huge library of available information, or a way
to connect the people from all over the world, representing a ”network of the
networks”, which ”covers” the large areas of the Earth. The Internet is composed of a
big number of interconnected networks which have the using of some particular
protocols in common. The transfer of information(text, graphics, audio) is made using
various links between network and different protocols. From other point of view,
Internet represents a global network of computers.

2. Internet is the new means of communication of a new era in the world’s history.
World Wide Web(WWW) and the electronic commerce turned fast in forces of the
great chances from our society, bringing with them lots of challenges and new
opportunities.
Internet’s interferences in different domains of activity are increasingly diverse,
offering new valences to the conduct of the business. The Internet enlarges the field of
action of the traders and removes the entry barriers in it, even for the small and
medium enterprises. The consumers have the posibily to choose from a big quantity of
products and services from the global market and to purchase the best transactions.
Chapter 1: E-economy and E-commerce
The New Economy or the digital economy(e-economy) is a resultant of the
interaction from the personal computer, telecommunications and Internet and it is
characterized by a series of very special features in comparison with the traditional
economy.
1. The Structure of The Digital Economy
In order to structure the digital economy, it can be useful to group the main
components( digital products, the consumers, the producers, the intermediars, the
infrastructre of the company, the creators of web-sites) and other particular ways. A
developped sistem by CISCO Systems and the Univeristy of Texas, identifies four
components in an hierarchical structure of the e-economy: the Internet infrastructure,
the applications of the digital infrastructure, the intermediars and the online
transactions.
The level of the Internet infrastructure
This level is composed of the societies whose products and services help to the
demand and the developement of the network infrastructure. In this category we can
include the telecommunication societies, the suppliers of the Internet services, those
who provide suport for the Internet infrastructure, acces to the Internet and the
producers of the network equipment, of the computers etc. At this level the following
societies are active: IBM, Dell, RDS etc.
The level of the applications of the digital infrastructure
This level includes societies whose products and services allow the optimal use of
the infrastructure in order to realize electronic business. At this level, the needed
software products for the direct transactions on the web are realized. At this level the
following societies are active: Adobe, Macromedia etc.

3. The level of the intermediars in the digital economy
Even if they function on the Internet, the socities which are operating at this level
don’t take their incomes directly from the trasactions, they earn them from
commercials, taxes, commissions( advertising agency, intermediate agency of selling
tickets etc.). At this level the following societies are active: Yahoo, Travel.com etc.
The level of online transactions
This level, which is called ”the level of the traders”, includes all the types of the
members inside of the distribution chain which realize online operations, producers
who sell their own products, traders etc. At this level the following societies are
active: Amazon.com, IBM, Cisco etc.
1. The characteristics of the digital economy
The results of a research made by the Univeristy of Texas led to the shaping of the
following characteristics of the digital economy:
a. The level of the electronic transactions. From these, the electronic
commerce has an important share, which experienced a spectacular
development.
b. The size of the digital economy has become compatible with the
traditional one in only few ears from the introduction of WWW, revaling
already, as a size, with traditional areas as the energy, the automobiles and
the telecommunications.
c. The digital economy has become more important in the world, one of the
first 20 economies from the world, being the American one.
d. The digital economy has a great impact concerning the jobs and the
responsabilities related to these, remodeling the labor market. A lot of
categories of workers(for example, Internet developer) didn’t existed
before 1994/1995.
e. The staff who works in infrastructure and applications creates more than a
half of the revenue of the digital economy. The incomes of these levels are
higher than those of the intermediars and online transactions, which shows
the crystallization condition of the digital economy.
f. Organisations from the infrastructure layer have the highest income per
eployee. The Internet infrastructure is the most productive from all the
leels of the digital economy, a lot of organisations from the infrastructure
beng strong and benefiting of competence and important economies of
mney.
g. The big companies supply the digital economy. Even if a lot of new
orgnisations appear, te big companies keep on playing an important role.

4. 2. The electronic commerce
The digital economy is an economy which developes specific forms of this, the
electronic commerce being the most used and applied form of the Internet tehnology.
In the scientific literature, the electronic commerce(e-commerce) is presented as
being that activity with allows the electronic execution of the transactions between the
companies and the individs. The electronic business refers to the electronic execution
and the electronic administration of the transactions and of all the activities and
processes of a business. While the electronic commerce is the process of buying,
sale/change of products and services through the computer networks, the electronic
business are not limited to buying and selling goods, they include facilites for serving
the consumers, for maintaing the contacts with the suppliers, with the clients, with the
business parteners and also for the promotion of the products and/or the services
offered through electronic means.
The models of the electronic commerce:
a. B2B(Business to Business) is the most popular form of the electronic
commerce and includes all the electronic transactions between
organisations called type IOS(Inter-organizational Information System).
There are more types of inter-organisations systems: EDI-Electronic Data
Interchange, VAN-Value Added Network, EFT-Electronic Funds
Transfer etc.
b. B2C(Business to Consumer) refers to the retail transactions to individual
consumers( for example, a consumer from Amazon.ro is a consumer for
this model).
c. C2C(Consumer to Consumer) is a model where the consumers sell
directly to the consumers(for example, the people who sell properties,
houses, cars, other goods, commercials on the Internet etc.)
d. C2B(Consumer to Business). In this category we can include all the
people who sell products and services to the companies and those who
look for sellers, negociate with them and, in the end, a transaction takes
place.
e. The business of non-profit organisations.It refers to the activites of non-
profit organisations, academic, religious, social institutions, governmental
agencies, which use various forms of the electronic commerce to reduce
the costs, to improve the activities or the provided services. The
implication of the governments in the economic activities created some
particular models, like G2C(Government to Consumer),
G2G(Government to Governmetn).

5. f. The Intra-business contain the internal activities which take place in an
Intranet and involve changes of goods, services, information.
Chapter 2: The characterises of the succesfull web-pages.
A Web site is a collection of web pages, which are typical to a paticular domain
from World Wide Web.
The commercial sites are those sites built especially to support an organisation in
terms of her economic activity.
The audience of these sites is divided in more categories:
 The current and potential clients of the organisations;
 The current and potential investors of the organisation;
 The potential employees and third parties, as the press and
competitors.
Considering this varied audience, the purpose for which a site was created is one of
those presented hereunder, but most often, the site answers to more needs, so the
purpose is combined.
The distribution of information-the site is used to present information about the
products and services which are given by the company; other kind of information are
those about the contact.
The relations with the investors-a company which looks for external investors can
build a site to present information about the current financial situation and the
opportunities for investments.
Technical support-some parts of the site can be built in order to provide
information to help the clients considering the correct use of the products and services
which are provided by the company.
Staff recruitment-a site presents information about eomployment opportunities.
To realize a site which has the purpose to commercialize products and services on
the global market, people must take under consideration the following aspects:
 The key words are used for searching similar sites. They must be
included in the key areas of the site.
 The mentaining of a quick acces to the site using a minimum number
of images, graphics and photographies. The images must be kept under 12
KB, the colors have to be simple and the animations must be kept at
minimum.
 The provided information must correspond with the things that the
visitors of the sites want to know.

6.  The strategic objects of the firm must be presented. It is necessary for
the company to offer information about the staff and to show the photos of
the key employees.
 In the site, the firm must include a complete list of the products. The
delivery time, the warranties and the provided technical assistance must be
presented in the site.
 The client must find the phone number, the fax number, the e-mail
adresse and the mailing adrees of the firm on each page of the site.
 On the site, the firm has to create a mass-media section. This includes
press releases, photographies and biographies of the people who lead the
compay.
 On the site, in a special area, where only the visitor has acces, the firm
must include some information about the costs of transport, holidays etc.
The architecture of the site
Most of the sites are divided in subsections and each category includes pages with
a link to the home page, but it allows to the visitor to navigate from a page to another
without turning back to the main menu.
The main purposes of a site
1. It offers valuable information to the readers. They must find exactly what
they search. It finds solutions for their problems and answers to their
questions.
2. The persuasion of each searching engine is the most relevant( at least in thr
first 30) resaults for the targeted words. The key words are one of the most
important things in the case of optimizing for te searching engines.
Detailed purposes:
1. The potential visitors must find the site on the first or the second page from
the searching resaults for the key-words.
2. The potential visitors must read the title and the descriptions listed in the
resaults of searching and must consider them interesting and relevant to
enter the site.
3. If they find something which help them to solve their problems, they would
trust and they would follow the advices, even if it is to buy the product, to
sign up to newsletter etc.
The browsers
A web browser is a program or a package of programs which realize the
maneuvering of the text or graphic information on the Internet. In the present, the most

7. used browsers are Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. The browser works with web
pages.
The time of loading
One of the most signficant problems that all the web designers have is the low
speed of loading. The web users are usually people who don’t have patience and if the
site works slowly, they know that they can take the products, the information, the
services from other sites.
The consistency
When a profesional site is developed, te consistency is the most important thing
who must be taken in consideration. The background, the colors, the fontsmust have
an uniform look. An uniform site let the users to know where they are, it can creat a
brand in order to make the site to be recognized.
The navigation
Even if the site is difficult to realize, all the work can be in vain. A navigation must
be simple and uniform from a page to other. An efficient navigation should allow the
user to know three things: where he is, where he can arrive and how he can return to
the starting point. Every page must have a link to the home page.
The fonts
If the site will use fonts that not all the people have in their computers(like
Verdana, Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri etc), the visitor will not see them. There
can be used bold or italic to mark some terms.
The resolution
Today, the most used resolution is 1024x768. It’s a good idea to realize the design
of ths site at 1024x768, but the dimension of the text must be kept under 800 pixels. In
this way, the people who have old types of computers can read the content too.
Chapter 3: Online acquisitions
The aplications of the electronic commerce improved the operations acquisition
and supply chain. Some multinational companies support the idea that the realization
of a business thorugh electronic means reduced the number of staff for acquisitions
with 60%, reduced the costs with materials with 20% and they reduced the time for the
suppliers’ selectrion.
The reasons which determinated these reductions are:
 The occurrence of some sites for the goods exchange and auctions on
specific areas.
 The development of some platforms for electronic acquisitions by the
multinational companies

8.  The Internet is governed by a lot of standards concerning the
acquistions.
1. The particular tehnologies of the electronic commerce:
a. The establishment of the commerce company which will represent the
object of the projection. In the electronic commerce the projection can
regard the electronic shop, the universal electronic shop, the third
market, the virtual communities, the providers etc.
b. The location in case of the electronic commerce refers to hosting on
your own or using of some providers for hosting. The firms which are
interested in the implementation of an online shop can choose one of
the following versions: the existence of a unique Web site, in which
case the client has a site on a server and he can have a unique URL; the
existance of a unique page for presentation of the shpw,in which case
the client has only one shop on only one server of the host; mall is the a
version accordint to which the client has more pages for presentantions
of online shops at the same URL adress and data base.
c. The improvement in the electronic commerce reflects the layout of the
web page, process which presumes content elements, graphics, links,
navigation sistems and media elements.
d. The merchandise displaying requires the implementantion of a
particular tehnology, shopping cart. The shopping cart sistems provides
information about the following aspects: the nature of the products and
their characteristics, the examination and the recording of the data.
e. The tehnology of the supplying, storage, selling and services delivery.
In the case of the electronic commerce, outside the merchandise
supplying, the firm must take into consideation the suppliers for web
hosting services, for web design, web advertising etc. The information
about the supplying, storage and selling activites generates different
characterises concerning the running modules and delivery
arrangements. For the execution of an electronical order it is necessary
that the existing interface for the launch of the order to have the
following particurites: a guard-page, where all the products and their
characteristics are presented, a ”carriage of goods”, which includes the
selected products, a form with data about the clients, a form with
information about the payment and about the delivery, a form of
confirming the order. The delivery terms of the online shops vary from
1-3 days or periods of 2-3 weeks, for the products which are not

9. anymore in stock at that moment or which make te subject of a
particular order.
f. The tenology of receivables, payments and discounts. The way of
payment represents one of the most important problems of the
electronic commerce. The electronic payment systems differ depending
on a number of characteristics: security characteristics, the value of the
payments, the type of the transaction(online or offline) etc. The most
used solutions for electronic payments are: PayPal, SoftNet, CyberCash
etc.
2. Models of business in the electroni commcerce
 The virtual shop is a type of community and represents the virtual
correspondent of the real entites.
 The electronic supply is necessary for the acquirement of goods and
services by the great companies and public authorities, throught the
organizatin of the auctions.
 The universal electronic shop is a collection of shops combined in a
common organization which accept the same payment methods.
 The third market manifest itself thorugh an user interface for the
products list of the company.
 The colaboration platforms include a set of instruments and an
international environment for the colaboration between the
companies.
 The information and other services brokerage include lists of clients,
the selling of business opportunities, consulting in scientific
domains.
3. Advantages and disadvantages of the electronic commerce
Without doubt, the Internet has an extraordinary impact on the business world. This
is because of the advantages it presents for the consumers and for the producers. The
Internet has also different kind of disadvantages.
a. Advantages for the traders:
 The posibility of the small companies to compete with the big ones.
Because the launching of a virtual shop includes reduced costs, the small
companies have a less barrier to entry on the markets, dominated by the
big companies.
 Contact with the clients 24 hours of 24, 7 days of 7. In contrast to the
usual employees, who need salaries, a working program, holiday, a web

10. site offers information about the firm and its products and processes
orders 24 hours of 24, 7 days of 7, with minimum costs.
 The facility to enter on international markets. The worlwide network
has no frontiers, it is in possesion of none, and the acces and the costs of
publication are reduced.
 The decrease of the operating costs. These costs can be drastically
reduced through the automation of the order process.
b. Advantages for consumers:
 Disponibility 24 hours of 24, 7 days of 7. This disponibility represents
an advantage for the clients, who can buy good even in the night.
 Comodity. Because of the electronic commerce, each person can buy
things from home, analizing and comparing some products.
c. Disadvantages for the traders:
 The fraud. The Intert tehnology created new possibilites of fraud.
 The security. The connection of a company to a public network, where
everybody as acces generates serious problems.
d. Disadvantages for consumers:
 Privacy. The potential clients are afraid that, because of the Internet,
the traders or a person with bad intentions can find detailed information
about them.
 The absence of the human contact. The absence of the seller
represents an obstacle to the spread of this form of trade.
 The acces to tehnology. As long as a web site willbe accesible only to
the people who know to launch the browser and to write the web adress,
most of the clients will prefer the coner store.
Chapter 4: Research regarding the opinion of te clients about the online
advertising
1. The purpose of the research
The purpose of the research was the study of the opinion about the online
advertising .
2. Tools for data collection
For this project, a questionary was used to find out the opinion about the online
advertising of the people included in the sample.The questionary was composed from
a series of questions aimed to gather informtion about the sample(sex, age, income,

11. educational level)and a series of questions aimed to study the people’s opinion about
the online advertising.
3. The used sample
The research mehtodology predicted the application of a questionary on a sample
of 41 people.
4. The research objectives
Concidering that the purpose of the research was the study of the opinion about the
online advertisting, the objectives may be:
 The analysis of the impact that Internet has on the population
 The research of the people’s opinion about how often is the online
advertising on the Internet
 The study of the attention that the individs pay to online advertising.
 The highlighting of the products that the individs buy from the
Internet.
5. The research hypotheses
 All the individes questioned spend each week a part of their time on
the Internet.
 Most of the subjects ordered goods from the Intrnet.
 Most of the subjects condiser that advertising is often met on the
Internet.
 Most of the subjects ordered clothes, jeweleries and books from the
Interet.
6. Data Analysis
41 people answered to the questions, 33 females and 8 males as we can see in
figure 1.
Figure 1.the sex of the subjects
86%
14%
Sex
F M

12. Concerning the age(figure 2) of the subjects, the most of the people who
answered are between 18 and 25 years, which proves that the young people are
interested in the electronic commerce.
Figure 2.The age of the subjects
Concerning the edutational level(figure 2), most of the subjects have higher
education, 44% of them have the bachelor degree, 29% have the master degree , 24%
finished the highschool and 3% of them have oter degrees.
Figure 3.The educational level of the subjects
5%
76%
5%
2%12%
Age
over 45 years 18-25 years 26-32 years
33-38 years 39-45 years
29%
7%
3%
61%
Educational level
1001-2000 RON 2001-3000 RON
over 3000 RON under 1000 RON

13. Concerning the income(figure 4) per month of the subjects, the most
people(44%) have under 1000 RON per month, 29% of them have between 1001-2000
RON and the rest of them have high revenues, after 2001 RON per month.
Figure 4. The income per month of the subjects
At the first question(figure 5), all the people admitted that they acces the
Internet for more times per week.
Figure 5. The first question
At the second question(figure 6), most of the subjects comfirmed that they
bought some products from the Internet. This thing proves that the people are drawn
by the electronic commerce.
29%
7%
3%
61%
Income per month
1001-2000 RON 2001-3000 RON
over 3000 RON under 1000 RON
100%
For how many times per week do you
acces the Internet?
for more times

14. Figure 6. The second question
At the third question(figure 7), the influence that the online advertising has on
the people can be noticed. Most of them purchase goods after they saw a commercial
on the Internet.
Figure 7. The third question
According to the pie-chart, the forth question(figure 8) shows the products that
the people use to buy on the Internet. Most ofthe people are interested to buy books,
clothes and jeweleries.
76%
24%
Have you ever bought something from
the Internet?
yes no
59%
41%
3. Have you ever bought something after
you saw the commercial on the Internet?
yes no

15. Figure 8. The forth question
The fifth question(figure 9) proves that the online publicity is very present on
the Internet, bcecause all the subjects confirmed that they met publicity on the
Internet.
Figure 9. The fifth question
Accoding to the sixth question(figure 10), the most found forms of advertising
on the Internet are the banner, the e-mail campaign and the sponsorised link.
What products do you use to buy from the Internet?
jeweleries
computers
books, jeweleries
books, computers
books, electronics, animals
books, electronics
books, clothes
books, clothes, jeweleries
books, clothes,animales
books, clothes, computers,jeweleries
books
watches, tickets, books
anything i need
electronics
clothes
clothes, book, computers
tickets, computers, books
100%
Did you meet publicity on the
Internet?
yes

16. Figure 10. The sixth question
At the seventh question(figure 11), most of the subjects confirmed that the
online advertising is often found on the Internet.
Figure 11. The seventh question
At the question number 8(figure 12), most of the subjects confirmed that they
are drawn by the provided information, a part of them are drawn by the amusement
and a little part of the subjects are drawn by the notoriety of the company from the
advertising.
If you did, what form of advertising did you find?
banner
banner, e-mail campaign, sponsorized link
banner, e-mail campaign
banner, sponsorized linked
banner pop-up
banner, e-mail campaign, pop-up
banner, pop-up, link sponsorizat
e-mail campaign
e-mail campaign, sponsorized link
sponsorized link
pop-up
pop-up, sponsorized link, e-mail campaign,
12%
88%
From your point of view, advertising is often
present on the Internet?
acceptable often

17. Figure 12. The question number 8
The nineth question(figure 13) expresses the eficiency of the online
advertising, most of the students supported the ideea that it is eficient.
Figure 13. The ninth question
At the tenth question(figure 14), we can see that the most of the subjects don’t
click on online advertising.
32%
51%
17%
To what do you pay attention when you see
an online advertising?
the amusament
the provided information
the notoriety of the company from the advertising
88%
12%
Do you think that the online
advertising is efficient?
yes no

18. Figure 14. The tenth question
Conclusions
In conclusion i can say that the e-commerce is the main element of the new
economy, and the Internet represents the main environment where itis making his
presence felt.
From the shpping made from the armchair to the closing of the traditional shops to
enter in the online environment, the electronic commerce has influence on every
business decision, at management level and among the consumers.
References
Albastroiu, Irina(2010), ”The Contribution of the electronic commerce to the
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Bucur, Cristina(2002),”Electronic Commerce”, The Academy of Economic
Studies, Bucharest;
Ghilic, Bodan(2002), ”The Virtual Shop”, The economic informatics magazine,
The Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest;
International Trade Center(2000), ”The secrets of the elecronic commerce-guide
for exporters-small and medium enterprises”, Geneva
Onete, Bogdan(2010), ”Modelation in merchandise science”, The Academy Of
Economic Studies, Bucharest;
Rosca, Ion(2004), ”The Electronic Commerce: Concepts, tehnologies and
applications”, Economic Publishing, Bucharest.
The characteristics of a succesful site: http://www.tree.ro
yes
41%no
59%
Do you click on online
advertising?