Web sites for cultural products: Marketing potential for US consumers

The purpose of this study was to examine a series of retail Web sites for their potential in marketing cultural products to a projected audience of amenable US consumers and draw conclusions for marketing of cultural products to this market segment. Among 1,288 Web sites purported to market cultural products and crafts, a simple random sample of 101 retail Web sites were content analyzed based on the existence of five categories of information related to: company, product, culture, craft media and type, and transaction and fulfilment. The analysis revealed that a scarcity of information about the products, cultures, and artisans would hinder customers from purchasing cultural products. It was hypothesized that Web sites with greater appeal to the potential market segment would need to expand product information to include who, where, and how a product is made and cultural information to include indigenous symbolism and meaning underlying the products and the lives of artisans and families in the country.