Correspondence: David Gadish, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032, USA. Tel: +1 323 343 2924; Fax: +1 323 343 5209; e-mail: dgadish@calstatela.edu

¹is a faculty member of the College of Business and Economics at California State University, Los Angeles. He teaches technology and business process management courses. His current research interests include online marketing strategy and organisational strategy linking process, people and technology. He has worked for a variety of corporations and government organizations since 1991, and has consulted to government and corporations since 2002.

Received 19 July 2007; Revised 19 July 2007.

Abstract

Dental offices have been switching to online purchasing of their dental supplies and equipment. This paper presents the marketing strategy for a newly created online store for a dental supply company. The online store provides dentists with over 16,000 different dental products from alloys to dental instruments to X-ray products. Online sales is a more efficient approach to the traditional catalogue order method where dentists place orders with a salesperson, call in or fax their orders. Online as well as traditional marketing techniques have been incorporated into a marketing campaign to promote online sales. The process and challenges of marketing this website with a tight budget are discussed. Results of the first two years of marketing efforts are reported.