E-Marketing in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

1580 Words4 Pages

Chapter one

The issues confronting the growth and development of E-Marketing in KSA today

There is a high growth rate of Information Technology (IT) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in the present days due to the high sales of personal computers (PC) and the improvement in the internet sector. According to the Ministry of Commerce in KSA, the e-marketing practices are not growing at the same rate as the growth of IT which therefore calls for the evaluation of the South web practices (Al-Otaibi & Al-ZAhrani). The development of web services and the growth of internet are the two major contributions in the growth of the E-marketing in every nation in the world. The use of internet is continuously booming worldwide whereby a big population is turning to the use of E-commerce both globally and locally in Saudi Arabia. With the current estimation of around 28 million citizens in the country, the IT sector has recorded a growth rate of 9.3% with the spending on the e-commerce estimated at SR12 billion (Eid 2011). However, cultural factors such as the tradition of oral communication, which gives more weight to word of mouth advertisement than text and images found on the web, may be a contributing factor in the success of e-marketing in the Arab region (Fandy 2000).

The KSA marketing dimension is concerned with the ability of the website to attract more customers and presenting goods and services offers in a more intelligent manner. This is done through the three features which include: targeting the correct audience; providing customer-centric services; and gathering information concerning the individual customers and giving the necessary services. Many people have not yet realized the need of internet in business activities t...

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