AUTHOR
Jonsson, Elin; Sanders-Wikström, Maria

DATE
2000-05-15

DEPARTMENT
Business Administration and Social Sciences / Industrial marketing and e-commerce

SUMMARY
Marketing activities have traditionally been conducted via communication-, transaction- and distribution channels. Today activities from these channels can be performed on the Internet and the World Wide Web. This phenomenon provides a new opportunity, for small companies in particular, considering that they can make use of this tool at a relatively low cost. The purpose with this thesis was to investigate how small companies use their Web sites as a marketing tool. To reach the purpose we have studied the objectives of four companies, how they have developed their Web sites and how they assess the effectiveness of these. We have conducted a multiple case study of four Swedish companies and have used interviews and direct observations to collect data. Our study shows that the companies’ primary objectives are related to marketing communication, they prefer to design and maintain the site themselves, and all four companies assess their sites’ effectiveness.

ISSN 1404-5508 / ISRN LTU-SHU-EX--00/100--SE / NR 2000:100