An examination of the e-mail and electronic relationship marketing practices of the USA's top 500 online retailers

Abstract

The present study analyses the relationship between the relative size of an internet retailer in terms of annual sales and their use of e-mail marketing and electronically mediated relationship marketing strategies. The results reveal that the majority of the USA's top 500 online retailers do in fact rely on e-mail marketing programs and that higher-ranked companies actually send more e-mails per customer per year than their lower-ranked counterparts. Also, higher-ranked online retailers are not as likely to permanently include an 'opt-in' choice on their websites, although they are more likely to send a series of welcome e-mails. Moreover, there is partial support that higher-ranked online retailers are more likely to utilise incentive offers. Finally, higher-ranked online retailers are more likely to include links to social networks on their websites.