Towards developing value strategies to improve contact efficiency of Web sites: a marketing perspective

The Internet has received a great deal of attention in the media lately due to the tremendous growth among consumers and businesses alike. Furthermore, the acceptance and usage of the Internet is so phenomenal that many experts are having difficulty in monitoring its growth (Bush, Bush and Harris, 1998:17). NUA Internet surveys, as depicted in Figure 1, estimate that the number of Internet users may still increase to about 350 million world-wide by the year 2005. According to Hanson (1999:17), this growth in Internet users creates opportunities for businesses to develop new services and brands.