Mobile Distribution, Procurement & Sales

Abstract

Distribution, procurement and sales are powerful tools for businesses to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage. Distribution can help companies find some solutions for many challenges in producing better or cheaper products and reaching customers in highly competitive environments (Heidelberger, 2009). Almost all buying decisions include factors such as delivery and handling, marginal benefit, and price fluctuations. Combining existing product, price and brand advantages with investment in channel programs and technology is a proven strategy for establishing success with distribution. Mobile procurement has gradually become more and more important in our era. This also brings entrepreneurs new opportunities to reach customers especially in banking and press businesses but these sectors should not be forgotten that these are the easiest sectors to apply this kind of distribution. These sectors’ implementations mostly depend on communications; on the other hand, this doesn’t mean that other sectors could not employ these systems. Notably, the retail sector should be considered with all its distinctions. On the other hand, mobile sales systems are also very promising. However, currently mobile distribution is explained in two distinctive aspects. One of them is based on the distribution of products and services side and the other one is distribution of the contents side which is very frequently used in Bluetooth and LBS systems in mobile marketing. In this chapter, mobile distribution and sales are generally examined. LBS applications and Bluetooth marketing are taken in to account as their content delivery convenience and disparity. © 2010 by IGI Global. All rights reserved.