• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.37-48
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• 2009

The standardization of marketing has been one of the most focused research topics in international marketing. The term "global marketing" was often used to mean an internationally standardized marketing strategy based on similarities between foreign markets. Marketing standardization was discussed only within the context of traditional physical marketplaces. Since then, the digital "marketspace" of the Internet had emerged in the 90's, and it became one of the most important drivers of the globalization process opening new opportunities for the standardization of global marketing activities. On the other hand, the opinion that a greater adoption of the Internet by customers may lead to a higher degree of customization and differentiation of products rather than standardization is also quite popular. Considering this disagreement, it is notable that comprehensive studies which focus upon the marketing standardization especially in the context of global e-commerce are missing to a high degree. On this background, the two basic research questions being addressed in this study are: (1) To what extent do companies standardize their marketing in international e-commerce? (2) Is there an impact of marketing standardization on the performance (or success) of these companies? Following research hypotheses were generated based upon literature review: H 1: Internationally engaged e-commerce firms show a growing readiness for marketing standardization. H 2: Marketing standardization exerts positive effects on the success of companies in international e-commerce. H 3: In international e-commerce, marketing mix standardization exerts a stronger positive effect on the economic as well as the non-economic success of companies than marketing process standardization. H 4: The higher the non-economic success in international e-commerce firms, the higher the economic success. The data for this research were obtained from a questionnaire survey conducted from February to April 2005. The international e-commerce companies of various industries in Germany and all subsidiaries or headquarters of foreign e-commerce companies based in Germany were included in the survey. 118 out of 801 companies responded to the questionnaire. For structural equation modelling (SEM), the Partial-Least. Squares (PLS) approach in the version PLS-Graph 3.0 was applied (Chin 1998a; 2001). All of four research hypotheses were supported by result of data analysis. The results show that companies engaged in international e-commerce standardize in particular brand name, web page design, product positioning, and the product program to a high degree. The companies intend to intensify their efforts for marketing mix standardization in the future. In addition they want to standardize their marketing processes also to a higher degree, especially within the range of information systems, corporate language and online marketing control procedures. In this study, marketing standardization exerts a positive overall impact on company performance in international e-commerce. Standardization of marketing mix exerts a stronger positive impact on the non-economic success than standardization of marketing processes, which in turn contributes slightly stronger to the economic success. Furthermore, our findings give clear support to the assumption that the non-economic success is highly relevant to the economic success of the firm in international e-commerce. The empirical findings indicate that marketing standardization is relevant to the companies' success in international e-commerce. But marketing mix and marketing process standardization contribute to the firms' economic and non-economic success in different ways. The findings indicate that companies do standardize numerous elements of their marketing mix on the Internet. This practice is in part contrary to the popular concept of a "differentiated standardization" which argues that some elements of the marketing mix should be adapted locally and others should be standardized internationally. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the overall standardization of marketing -rather than the standardization of one particular marketing mix element - is what brings about a positive overall impact on success.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.103-123
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• 2014

Export performance has been a core topic in export marketing research. This study aims to investigate the relationship between adaptation/standardization strategies and export performance obtained after implementing each of these strategies to marketing mix variables. It is expected that the study results will help companies better understand an efficient marketing mix and applicability of adaptation/standardization approaches in their export ventures. New Zealand exporting firms which actively seek for export markets in Korea are selected for empirical analysis of this study. Adaptation and standardization are concepts that signify the level of intensity in each strategy; both have advantages and weaknesses. In the case of adaptation approach, it is shown that the difference in export performance between satisfactory and non satisfactory export ventures is statistically significant in marketing mix variables such as price, place and promotion. However, product variables affect statistical significance on export performance between satisfactory and non satisfactory export ventures in standardization approach. This study implies that when a company exports its product overseas, standardization effort is more important for product variables whereas much effort needed in adapting marketing variables such as price, place, and promotion to get satisfactory export performance.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.55-69
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• 2014

Purpose - Despite the importance of price, many companies do not implement pricing policies smoothly, because typical price management strategies insufficiently consider logistics efficiency and an increase in logistics costs due to logistics waste. This study attempts to examine the effect of product line pricing, which corresponds to product mix pricing, on logistics efficiency in the case of manufacturer A, and analyzes how logistics performance changes in response to these variables. Research design, data, and methodology - This study, based on the case of manufacturer A, involved research through understanding the current status, analyses, and then proposing improvement measures. Among all the products of manufacturer A, product group B was selected as the research object, and its distribution channel and line pricing were examined. As a result of simulation, for products with low loading efficiency, improvement measures such as changing the number of bags in the box were suggested, and a quantitative analysis was conducted on how these measures influence logistics costs. The TOPS program was used for the Pallet loading efficiency simulation tool in this study. To prevent products from protruding out of the pallet, the maximum measurement was set as 0.0mm, and loading efficiency was based on the pallet area, and not volume. In other words, its size (length x width) was focused upon, following the purpose of this study and, then, the results were obtained. Results - As a result of the loading efficiency simulation, when the number of bags in the box was changed for 36 products with low average loading efficiency of 73.7%, as shown in