The relevance of brands for electronic commerce results from an empirical study of consumers in Europe

As the use of the Internet continues to grow among consumers, firms need to assess the requirements of individual branding-strategies in the context of electronic commerce. Although branding has been an integral part of the marketing mix for a long time, the issue of brand orientation and consumer loyalty in the context of the Internet has not yet seen the same attention. This paper presents results from a major empirical study on Electronic Commerce in the automotive industry in Europe. The study analyzes the impact of the Internet and Electronic Commerce on the relevance of brands, as well as on the information behavior and decision variables of online consumers. The results show that, compared to offline environments, branding strategies play an even more important role in online environments. The paper also summarizes some of the consequences of these developments for online branding strategies, such as personalization methods and one-to-one marketing.