In E-Shock, Michael de Kare Silver (2000) has identified six consumer categories, based on earlier work by A C Nielsen.
Value shoppers - basically "mercenaries" who will purchase through the Internet whenever this offers greatest value.
Convenience and last minute shoppers - responsive to things that save time or make life easier (e.g., single parents of young children who work during the day).
Experimenters - ready to try new things and new ways of purchasing.
Ethical - will purchase provided it is honest and politically correct, and hence will surf to find suppliers and products that are both.
Die-hards - will be the last to change, preferring to use traditional means of shopping. They will come on board when the technology is simple to use and much more convenient than their existing modes.
Social shoppers - these are customers who just enjoy shopping. Now customers surf the Net for the fun of it. Some websites provide a chat room for shoppers to talk about potential purchases like holidays, to swap stories and experiences just as they would do in the store or shopping mall.
But within these categories, customers are also different.
Let's considers investors again. Some would say "I don't keep a dog and bark myself." They employ professionals to do what they do not personally want to do, or are not qualified to do. Some investors want to participate in or influence the professional's decision, and others want professional advice on choosing for themselves. Just as there are degrees of participation, there are degrees of transparency versus privacy. Some customers would like other people to know just how wealthy and successful they are, while others use professionals to keep their affairs private. They believe it boastful or dangerous to flaunt their wealth.
Whichever way you look at it, customers vary in myriad ways and may treat their broker as being anything from a Buddha to a butler. It is because customers are so individually diverse that it takes a global community to bring satisfaction to each person. It requires deep relationships of mutual respect to find, amidst that community, just those people and resources that the client requires most.
There has been a lot of discussion recently on whether the Internet can help suppliers cross borders more effectively by either ignoring cultural differences or by taking particular account of them.
Some studies indicate that marketers make too much of cultural differences and their effect on marketing, usually to the exclusion of more important issues such as "What does the customer want and need from my company and my product? What possible reason would they have to choose us over our competition?" (Flikkema, 1998). In Flikkema's study consumer and business surveys were conducted in five countries around the world: the United States, Britain, France, Australia, and Japan. It was found that cultural differences had essentially no effect on the attitudes, motivators, and needs involved in purchasing technology. A first-time PC buyer in Japan was more similar to a first-time buyer in France than to a repeat buyer in Japan. An "enthusiast" buyer was an enthusiast buyer around the world. Although regional differences were found, they didn't make any appreciable difference to the purchase process.
The main argument to explain this homogeneity is that technology is new and has given us not only common reference points, but common status and aspiration points as well. To be upscale anywhere in the industrialized world, you need a house, a car, a mobile phone, a plasma TV with DVD player, a sound system, and a sophisticated home computer. People have an innate need to believe they and their cultures are unique, and, in spiritual terms, they argue. In marketing terms, however, the world is becoming increasingly homogenous. And the use of the Internet is just making it all the more global and culturally insensitive.
On the other hand there are other research findings that conclude the opposite. They cite the US-centric approach as one of the main reasons why the Internet has not boosted overall sales worldwide, given that 65 percent of total Internet sales come from outside the US (Jastrow, 1999). Once upon a time, it was just one great, glorious space - borderless, unfettered by rules, a great virtual community. The Americans were so awestruck when developing the Web that they overlooked the fact that this was really a worldwide media platform and not just a US network. Little things - such as requiring visitors to identify themselves as "Mr," "Mrs," or "Miss" - may seem innocent, but could be perceived as insults in certain countries, as well as by certain groups of (potential) customers.
We may be seeing the end of the Web's freewheeling ways as more governments take increasingly aggressive positions on the legality (and possible taxation) of the bytes that flow across their borders. That means you could get a friendly (or not so friendly) email message from some government official telling you that you can't say or do or sell something on your website because it's being viewed in a particular country. Even buying a Dell PC online is preceded by various questions such as whether the PC will be exported to other countries and whether it is to be used for weapons of mass-destruction ...In same vein, the UK Inland Revenue - the tax-collecting arm of the Treasury - is looking at ways of monitoring transactions as a means of cross-referencing declarations of income and expenditure in tax returns, and of identifying money laundering.
Fons and AOL
Fons changed the credit card with which he paid his monthly bills on his AOL account. There was a way to change payment details through AOL's site; however, he was asked for his zip code and his Dutch address was immediately rejected. Fortunately there was a 1-800 telephone number for contacting AOL; unfortunately, it wouldn't work outside the US.
Fons' account and email address stopped functioning. Ludicrously, he had to call a colleague who lived in the States in order to get his account unblocked. This was the only way it was possible.
This may come as a surprise to some who believe that because they're moving at "web speed," the traditional rules somehow don't apply. Perhaps the most widely known example is the clothing company Lands End's recent run-in with the German government, which declared the company's "lifetime" guarantee on its products to be illegal within Germany (14 days is the maximum there). Another example concerns legal mandates, such as those in French-speaking Canada, which state that French should not only be available, but also be the dominant language on all publications and signage (Peek, 2000).
However it's not just conforming to local laws and language but to local customs that should concern contemporary web publishers. Many traditional publishers are already aware of the necessity of creating separate editions for global markets, and even though English is the language of the Web, that doesn't mean that readers will stay if an alternative is available. Forrester Research recently reported that people are twice as likely to stay at a website if it was written in their native language. While language translation programs might be adequate (an 80-90% accuracy rate is generally reported), most serious web publishers are discovering that that content must be completely rewritten in the native language of the surfing consumer.
Unfortunately, there is no simple way to translate graphics and visual elements and to ensure that they will represent the same meaning in other cultures. In the US, for example, orange is considered a warm color, but in Japan it's cool. In some cultures it may be more appropriate to show the product owned by a single individual, to emphasize individualism and individual choice. In others, it may be more effective to show a group of people enjoying or surrounding the product to emphasize collective appreciation. Here the message is to buy the product because then you can stay part of the group, or join it.