Successful Marketing Demands New Approach.

• Position: Brief Article

Successful marketing executives will have to take an entirely new approach to business in the 21st century as consumers become more connected to the Information Age, predicts Robert Robicheaux, professor of retailing and director of the Hess Institute for Retailing Development, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. "Simply, all the stuff that used to be important may become relatively meaningless. The reason is that customer purchases over the Internet are beginning to escalate--to really grow to the levels that had been anticipated for the last 10 years. Hold on America, we are about to experience a whole new world of retailing!"

Where customers shop, how they shop, how they buy, what they buy, and how much they are willing to pay are questions that marketers working for manufacturers and retailers once felt fairly confident about, he says, but "They are less sure about their answers today. The fact is that business-to-business marketers embraced e-commerce as a cost-saving technology years ago. Unbeknownst to most of us, companies' purchases of products and services on the Internet have already mushroomed to gargantuan levels. Now, consumers are catching up," Robicheaux points out.

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