Internet Marketing Assignment: Software, E-commerce, and Channels

This assignment solution delves into the core concepts of internet marketing, addressing the crucial decision-making process behind software monetization strategies. It contrasts the approaches of selling or licensing proprietary software versus adopting an open-source model, providing examples like UFT and Selenium to illustrate the factors influencing these choices, such as profit objectives and community engagement. Furthermore, the assignment explores the long-term success of multichannel retailers compared to pure-play internet retailers, arguing in favor of the former by highlighting the importance of a combined online and offline presence to cater to diverse customer preferences and leverage the benefits of both channels. The solution emphasizes the advantages of an integrated approach for retailers like eToys.com, ensuring maximum benefit from both online and offline strategies. The assignment is supported by relevant academic references.

INTERNET MARKETING
Internet Marketing
Student’s name
Name of the Institute

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Question: Some firms choose to generate revenue by selling or licensing their proprietary
software. Other choose an open systems approach and distribute it free of charge. What do you
think drives this decision?
There are various reasons that drive the reasons for monetarization of software. There are
some companies that would want to keep their software free and then there would be some which
wants to make money form their software. For example, Selenium is open source code testing
software that could be used for free. However, there is another software on similar line, UFT
(Unified Functional Testing) form HP that is not free. One of the reasons that drive this decision
is the underlying objective associated with the development of software (Bowie & Paraskevas,
2014). HP developed UFT with a single objective of profit realization and therefore it is sold as a
licensed version in the market. On the other hand, Thought Works developed selenium with the
purpose of helping the community and therefore the software is available for free in the market.
There could also be other reasons like existing competition in the market, type of software, etc. If
the objective of the organization is to increase the user base, then the monetization of software
may not be a good strategy (Lewis & Whysall, 2014). For example, software like FB are freely
available for as the objective of the company is to acquire more and more users. For FB,
monetization happens through advertisement and therefore, the software is freely available for
the end users. However, for the software where there is no option for advertisement the income
happens through licenses only. For example, the commercial software are sold to business with
licenses as there is no scope of advertisement as these software are not end user facing.

INTERNET MARKETING
Question: According to your textbook, eToys.com suggests that multichannel retailers are more
likely to experience long-run success in the Internet economy than pure-play Internet retailers.
Take a position on this conjecture and defend your positions.
I think it is very difficult to comment about the long-term success of Internet retailer and
multichannel retailer. However, I would agree that multichannel retailer may have an edge over
the pure-play Internet retailer. There are various products that the customers would want to see
and feel before they buy the product and this personal touch is limited in Internet retailing. It is
true that there are various advantages of Internet retailing over the multichannel retailer like cost
and efficiency (Verhoef & Kannan, 2015). However, there would always be a customer base
who would want to store in physical store before. With multichannel retailer, retailers can
actually focus on the benefits of both the channels of online and offline. It is important to
mention that multichannel retailer is not only about focusing on the physical retailing. Basically,
the idea of multichannel retailer is to make the maximum benefit of an integrated approach
between Internet retailing and multichannel retailer (Lewis & Whysall, 2014). Therefore, it
would be a good idea for players like eToys.com and other players to focus on multichannel
retailing.

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References
Bowie, D., Paraskevas, A., & Mariussen, A. (2014). Technology-driven online marketing
performance measurement: lessons from affiliate marketing. International Journal of Online
Marketing, 4(4), 1-16.
Lewis, J., Whysall, P., & Foster, C. (2014). Drivers and technology-related obstacles in moving
to multichannel retailing. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 18(4), 43-68.
Shih, B. Y., Chen, C. Y., & Chen, Z. S. (2013). Retracted: an empirical study of an internet
marketing strategy for search engine optimization. Human Factors and Ergonomics in
Manufacturing & Service Industries, 23(6), 528-540.
Verhoef, P. C., Kannan, P. K., & Inman, J. J. (2015). From multi-channel retailing to omni-
channel retailing: introduction to the special issue on multi-channel retailing. Journal of
retailing, 91(2), 174-181.