Estimating the Importance of Social Media in Consumers’ Education and Information Using New Techniques

The social media is composed of easily accessible web tools through which people converse, participate, create, recommend, valorify information and respond online to everything that happens around them. These web tools offer a dynamic virtual environment where users are engaged in a continuous traffic generated by information and interactivity. Internet development and access to information led to a change in consumer behavior in Romania. In this context, it must be taken into account that the buying decision and the decision to include certain foods in daily diet is significantly influenced by the views and experiences of other consumers, expressed in the virtual environment. Thus a new communication channel provided by the internet through social media (forums, chat, blogs, sites reviews) appeared. In this respect, we conducted a research - using the main search engines – with the aim to analyze the evolution of the number of forums and blogs, and also of the posts on these, related to the words bio-eggs, eggs from battery raised chickens and eggs numbering, during December 2009 – June 2010.Social Media, consumers education, ecological food, forum, blog

Consumer between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0

Along with the digital technologies’ advance over the last decade, more sales and marketing channels have emerged, causing consumers to change their habits and purchasing behavior. This paper appears in the context of such an issue and aims both to present the increasingly omni-channel nature of the consumer behavior and to identify and emphasize the needs and expectations of the customers, in line with the development of the Internet. Therefore, the paper presents the evolution of the modern consumer considering the Web conversion from a static environment to an interactive community. During the two intertwined phases of Web development presented in this paper, namely Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, customers have evolved from a highly informed and socially connected to a more empowered and engaged customer, defined by the ability to adapt and apply new technologies to meet their specific individual needs and seeking for an even emotional bond with brands. The paper also exposes how the social media landscape has generated a power shift from the business organizations toward the consumer and how social media can be a powerful tool with which consumers can react if they feel that their rights are aggrieved by business organizations

Sharing Economy: Challenges and Opportunities in Tourism

In the last decades, our society and the economy have undergone great changes that led to the emergence of new economic models. These models emerged in the developed countries. Subsequently, the informational revolution has expanded across the globe, and contributed to the development of these new models. The sharing economy is one of them. Through technology and the internet, tools that provide instant access to information from anywhere in the world, the collaborative economy expands and grows continuously. This allows for easier interaction between people of all categories. The aim of this paper is to highlight the challenges, opportunities and benefits brought by the sharing economy regarding the national and international tourism, as well as to find out to what extent is the availability, accessibility, consumer and stakeholders’ degree of acceptance towards the current technological infrastructure. The paper contains the analysis of a study case regarding the Airbnb business model, company that has been involved in the economic transition of the last years and contributed to the emergence of the sharing economy. As well, the article contains a study of collected data with regards to the distributed spaces on the company’s site from 5 Romanian cities, and 5 European cities, in a certain period, statistical data regarding the online bookings made in member countries of the European Union, and data about the accommodation units in Romania, the number of overnight stays and arrivals. This research is useful for all individuals or legal entities involved in the tourism field in order to acknowledge in what way and to what extent the accommodation units in Romania are evaluated and rated. Moreover, the possible options for touristic improvement and development through the sharing economy, in terms of quality, technological infrastructure and approach are evaluated. We consider that it is important how the sharing economy impacts and influences Romania to a lesser extent, and what repercussions or changes will occur in the future

THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL EDUCATION TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE DIGITAL CONSUMER IN THE ERA OF CIRCULAR ECONOMY

A more sustainable economy and society presume more sustainable behavior in terms of consumption. A change in this behavior could be brought by a change in demand. In other words, a change in the demand could be facilitated by one’s financial and digital education. The circular economy implies the reuse and recycling of products and materials over and over again; thus, the life cycle of products and materials is extended. Engaging in recycling should have future benefits. Recycling behavior and sustainability are interrelated, the recycling process is viewed as a key issue in sustainability and prevails as pro-environmental consumer behavior. It is already known that significant changes in individual behavior are essential for society to move toward sustainability. This paper aims to explore from a quantitative perspective if digital education has an impact on consumer behavior in terms of sustainability in the era of the circular economy. This research is useful for all providers, consumers, and stakeholders involved in different businesse

Differences in travelers\u27 perceptions of popular tourist destinations estimated by a LSTM neural network: A comparison between the UK and Germany

This study examines the differences and similarities in the perceptions of popular tourist destinations between the English and German media in an empirical and quantitative way. The perception of a tourist destination country is measured by the sentiment in the media in the tourists\u27 countries of origin—either the UK or Germany. The study measures such perceptions with the help of a Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) artificial neural network that analyzes the perceptions in publicly available news streams in the UK and Germany. The results show that the online media indeed generates different perceptions for some of the popular travel destinations. An equally interesting finding is that there is, in general, a broad consensus between the sentiments in the British and German media. Businesses in the tourism and hospitality sectors, news providers, political actors, and policymakers can use the methodology to analyze the source of this information gap and the impact on their operations and policies

THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL EDUCATION TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE DIGITAL CONSUMER IN THE ERA OF CIRCULAR ECONOMY

A more sustainable economy and society presume more sustainable behavior in terms of consumption. A change in this behavior could be brought by a change in demand. In other words, a change in the demand could be facilitated by one’s financial and digital education. The circular economy implies the reuse and recycling of products and materials over and over again; thus, the life cycle of products and materials is extended. Engaging in recycling should have future benefits. Recycling behavior and sustainability are interrelated, the recycling process is viewed as a key issue in sustainability and prevails as pro-environmental consumer behavior. It is already known that significant changes in individual behavior are essential for society to move toward sustainability. This paper aims to explore from a quantitative perspective if digital education has an impact on consumer behavior in terms of sustainability in the era of the circular economy. This research is useful for all providers, consumers, and stakeholders involved in different businesse

The Impact of COVID-19 on Online Consumer Behavior for Sports Equipment: A Trend Analysis

This article proposes to examines how internet shopping for sports equipment changed during and after the COVID-19 outbreak in the UK. The goal of the study is to comprehend how the pandemic affected consumer behavior in relation to purchasing of sporting goods. Using Google search data for phrases related to sporting goods, the study looks for patterns and changes in customer interest over time. According to our findings, there were considerable shifts in the sports equipment search trends both during and after the epidemic, with a noticeable rise in searches for terms like home gym, fitness equipment, and fitness app, among others. According to the analysis, pandemic-related lockdowns and gym closures were the main causes of the rise in sports gear and fitness-related searches. The survey sheds light on how customers shop online, emphasizing the significance of the home gym trend as a reaction to the closing of conventional gyms and the demand for at-home fitness options. By offering insights into the changing customer behavior during a pandemic, this study adds novelty to the field of sports equipment sales. In their quest to comprehend shifts in customer behavior and modify their strategies in light of such shifts, marketers, corporations, and legislators may find the findings to have major practical ramifications. The research also gives prospects for future studies, such as the comparison of the results with other regions or the discovery of specific elements that influence consumer behavior in this setting

Reuse of Electronic Equipment and Software Installed on Them ‒ an Exploratory Analysis in the Context of Circular Economy

The transition to a circular economy in which the value of products, materials and resources is maintained as long as possible and the waste is minimized, has led to the creation of new business opportunities and new, innovative and efficient production and consumption models. Over the last few years, the principles of the circular economy have been gradually integrated into several sectors, the consumer electronics industry being such an example. The applicability of the circular economy principles in this sector has been presented in the literature, but these approaches have taken into account, in particular, the physical, tangible components of electronic products, focusing on the existing interrelationships between the circular economy and the production and use of electronic devices and equipment. Given that electronic products often incorporate intangible components, namely the software necessary for their operation, we have chosen to address in this paper the problems of the circular economy from this perspective, the purpose of this paper being to emphasize the relation between the use of software products and the principles of circular economy. Thus, the paper presents the main opportunities and challenges that circular economy involves for all stakeholders, namely manufacturers of electronic goods and developers of the related software and their users. In order to determine the way consumers capitalize the possibilities to reuse the software components of IT products they use (computers, tablets, mobile phones), we have undertaken an exploratory research that took place between October and November 2017 on the basis of a structured questionnaire posted online and applied to Romanian young people, the number of respondents being 257. Research has shown the respondents easily adapt to new versions of software when they change their phone or laptop and there is a frequent transfer of equipment without considering the possibilities of reuse the software because when the respondents alienate these devices also delete the installed softwar

Analysis Components of the Digital Consumer Behavior in Romania

This article is investigating the Romanian consumer behavior in the context of the evolution of the online shopping. Given that online stores are a profitable business model in the area of electronic commerce and because the relationship between consumer digital Romania and its decision to purchase products or services on the Internet has not been sufficiently explored, this study aims to identify specific features of the new type of consumer and to examine the level of online shopping in Romania. Therefore a documentary study was carried out with statistic data regarding the volume and the number of transactions of the online shopping in Romania during 2010-2014, the type of products and services that Romanians are searching the Internet for and demographics of these people. In addition, to study more closely the online consumer behavior, and to interpret the detailed secondary data provided, an exploratory research was performed as a structured questionnaire with five closed questions on the distribution of individuals according to the gender category they belong (male or female); decision to purchase products / services in the virtual environment in the past year; the source of the goods / services purchased (Romanian or foreign sites); factors that have determined the consumers to buy products from foreign sites; categories of products purchased through online transactions from foreign merchants. The questionnaire was distributed electronically via Facebook social network users and the data collected was processed directly in the Facebook official app to create and interpret responses to surveys. The results of this research correlated with the official data reveals the following characteristics of the digital consumer in Romania: atypical European consumer, interested more in online purchases from abroad, influenced by the quality and price of the purchase. This paper assumed a careful analysis of the online acquisitions phenomenon and also represents a direction for conducting a future research. The particularities identified in the Romanian digital consumer can help develop an online marketing mix based on behavioral study

Estimating the Importance of Social Media in Consumers’ Education

The social media is composed of easily accessible web tools through which people converse, participate, create, recommend, valorify information and respond online to everything that happens around them. These web tools offer a dynamic virtual environment where users are engaged in a continuous traffic generated by information and interactivity. Internet development and access to information led to a change in consumer behavior in Romania. In this context, it must be taken into account that the buying decision and the decision to include certain foods in daily diet is significantly influenced by the views and experiences of other consumers, expressed in the virtual environment. Thus a new communication channel provided by the internet through social media (forums, chat, blogs, sites reviews) appeared. In this respect, we conducted a research - using the main search engines – with the aim to analyze the evolution of the number of forums and blogs, and also of the posts on these, related to the words bio-eggs, eggs from battery raised chickens and eggs numbering, during December 2009 – June 2010