Sustainability of Online Merchandising Business in Cavite

Abstract

Starting an online business in the Philippines is the best option to gain experience in managing an enterprise. It does not require much capital, and the risks associated with running an Internet-based business are manageable. As with all businesses, there is great potential for income, and this directly corresponds with your productivity. In the business world, sustainability is a company's capacity to grow while minimizing negative impact on the local community or the environment at large. It goes beyond corporate social responsibility (CSR). This research has been conducted to determine the strategies used by business owners, to attain sustainability of online merchandising business patterned on the Attention-Interest-Desire-Trust-Action-Satisfaction (AIDTAS) theory of selling. It uses a descriptive type of research using a survey questionnaire as the main research instrument.  The  participants  of  the  study  were  the  online merchandising business owners in the province of Cavite. Weighted mean, Mann-Whitney U Test and Kruskal Wallis Test was utilized as the primary  tool  for  statistical  treatment  of data  and  SPSS  was employed  for  statistical  analysis.   Findings disclose that most business owners highly preferred to use the trust domain indicators which includes offering meet-ups, pick-ups and door-to-door delivery services to customers, customer testimonials, moneyback guarantees, cash-on-delivery (COD) payment terms and private policy for securing data of customers. The results likewise reveal that the strategies used by business owners to attain sustainability of merchandising business in terms of AIDTAS are the same regardless of their sex, age, length of existence and social media platform used. Based on the salient findings, an action plan was formulated in order to find out the reasons on the significant differences based on age bracket of usual customers in terms of trust and action domain, action domain for kinds of products offered and attention domain in terms of average monthly income.