What implications will this new technology have for marketing? What is the nature of Web advertising? How can a business use the medium effectively ? Where is all this going ? These questions appear to be most pertinent in the process of understanding interact ive marketing on the Internet.

Original development of the Internet what was originally created by the US military to provide a secure means of communication in case of nuclear war, which has now become known as the Internet, has metamorphosed into the strategic global communications tool of our era. The end of the cold w ar left this massive installed structure - initially dubbed ARPANET- without much of a purpose. Soon universities, major corporations and governments began to piggyback on to the global framework, extending its reach and commercialising it.

Known as the N et to aficionados, the availability of cheap, accessible and easy-to-use net access points throughout the world has seen the number of global Internet users increase dramatically each month. While the convenience of electronic mail was initial catalyst for Internet growth world wide, it's the emergence of the World Wide Web (WWW) multimedia interface that has captured the attention of prospective users across the globe.

This explains the phenomenon whereby the majority of local Internet entrepreneurs - many of them are under thirty and already multi-millionaires - come from tertiary education backgrounds where they were weaned on readily available Internet access. Popular 'browser' client software for navigating the multimedia WWW includes Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer. On the other end, there exist approximately 30 local companies which call themselves ISP's (Internet Service Providers), which operate in similar fashion to a cellular company.

Internationally, the Internet medium is successfully selling everything from nuts and bolts to motorcars, property and traditional mail order products. A pertinent question that arises is: 'What forces led to either the accidental emergence of interactive marketing on the internet or the realisation of a need for the development of an alternative marketing medium that satisfied specific consumer or marketer needs.

Clever marketers are using the medium to draw buyers closer to their companies as a whole and not just closer to the products or services they provide. This emphasises the advantages interactive marketing provides in terms of creating stronger, more unde rstanding relationships with consumers. The introduction of interactive marketing and specifically interactive advertising heralds the beginning of an era where customers will choose the advertising they wish to see, when they want to see it.

The modern consumer wants to know what product he is buying, what its detailed characteristics are, how he can expect it to perform, what alternatives he is faced with and why he should pay the offered price for it. The nature of interactive marketing on the Internet provides an ideal medium for the satisfaction of the demanding modern day consumer. It is obviously of critical importance that a marketer recognises these needs and develops syste ms for satisfying them, hence, interactive marketing on the Internet.

Online shopping is an element of interactive marketing that has found itself under the spotlight since its recent inception. Virtual retail sites on the Web continue to grow. Some sites are purely promotional while on the other extreme consumers are promised the lowest prices as the product is drop-shipped directly from the manufacturer.

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