Strategic orientations and digital marketing tactics in cross-border e-commerce: Comparing developed and emerging markets

Abstract

In this article, the impact of strategic orientations on the use of digital marketing tactics and, subsequently, on the international business performance of small electronic retailers (e-retailers) in cross-border electronic commerce (e-commerce) is analysed. Furthermore, these relationships are compared between e-retailers originating in both developed and emerging e-commerce markets. Using a sample of 446 small business-to-consumer e-retailers from 20 European countries, we find that the deployment of digital marketing tactics has a positive effect on international business performance. Of the strategic orientations examined, foreign market orientation is most associated with the use of digital marketing tactics. Remarkably, growth orientation only has a positive effect on e-retailers from developed e-commerce markets, while customer orientation negatively affects e-retailers from emerging e-commerce markets. The differences between e-retailers from developed and emerging e-commerce markets are prominent and show that markets should not be considered as either uniform or generalisable.

International Dynamic Marketing Capabilities of Emerging-Market Small Business on E-commerce

“…However, internal-resource-based view has been criticized as being static [82,95]. Not fixed resources, but dynamic capabilities have positive impatcs on in CBEC [35,42,89] and firm performance [93,95]. Although firms' capabilities are derived from internal resources, they are not just sum of internal resources [3,7,44,95].…”

“…With small budgets, innovative communication can be employed [71,83,91]. Small firms use less-resource-intensive open-source solutions [60,71,92]., such as SNS [28] and search engine advertisements [42]. Digital marketing clearly leads to better export performance [18,46,91], since it helps to build longlasting customer relationships [48].…”

e-Business Model to Optimise Sales through Digital Marketing in a Peruvian Company

“…It is taken into account that 22% of companies implement e-commerce through B2C (Business-to-consumer) helping the supplier to reach the customer or end consumer, in order to have a greater reach to customers, applying some marketing strategies such as online marketing and social networks. Which have been benefiting large companies, rather than micro or medium enterprises applying the B2C strategy along with digital marketing [7]. It consists of 2 important states, massiveness and personification allowing to approach the customer through advertisements, by means of liking, priority, benefit, etc.…”

Supporting Cross-Border E-commerce of Micro Entrepreneurs in Developing Countries: Export Marketing Strategy

“…Previous literature pointed out that technology is becoming less resource-intensive due to the availability of open-source solutions, bringing the adoption and use of digital marketing technologies within the reach of even the smallest firms [35,39,49]. It recommends small firms to use small budget marketing tools such as Social Networking Service [17] and search engine advertisements, which allows them to appear at the top of Google search results similar to their larger counterparts [24]. So, for MSMEs, it would be worthwhile to invest in skills and technical knowledge in using digital marketing tactics [29,49].…”

“…Not only online presence requires a different marketing strategy than off-line [10,13], marketing for small firms differs from those of large firms [8,27,28]. However, EMS remains understudied, despite its great importance for small firms and CBEC [24]. Digital marketing tactics, which is one of EMS, is also under researched [8], although is of great importance for small firms [17,35].…”