Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 69

Martha Stewart and e-commerce

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“Hopefully, she’ll bring more women online” (Rich 38).
The www.marthastewart.com Web site is a marketplace offering nostalgiaoriented wares to shoppers. Just as the Muzak filling urban malls once supplanted
the cacophony of vendors hawking their wares from the stalls of the open-air
marketplace, consumers now listen to the new merchant. Martha Stewart’s siren
song is e-mail, an intimate invitation. Consumers invited to visit this site shop in
the virtual departments of a virtual store.
Rich described the planned evolution of the www.marthastewart.com Web
site: “The site will initially serve as an information resource to accompany the
shows” and will “also feature a commerce section devoted to MSL merchandise”
(38). Ultimately, according to Rich, the site would evolve into a “larger, full-fledged
Internet service” (Rich 38).
The staff at MSLO understands that our social system is related to our media
of communication and our individual uses of media reflect our need for socialization.
The on-line shopping experience at the Martha Stewart Web site exploits the illusion
of interpersonal mediated communication, helping consumers feel connected to
Martha Stewart, their “friend”. The apparent success of this marketing strategy is
reflected in the evolution of the Web site from an information-rich site to a full
blown e-commerce site.
Future research must explore the growing sophistication of the e-consumer
and the communication strategies employed by e-merchants in the virtual
marketplace. The communication strategies used by individuals to counter the ploys
of the e-merchant need to be explored. This type of research can help to increase
the requisite media literacy skills individuals need to become critical consumers
while using the Web. Individuals need to be at least as critical of e-commerce as
they are of say, telemarketers. After all, Martha Stewart is not really going to call
consumers tonight at 6 p.m., is she? If an anonymous telemarketer, representing
MSLO, calls during dinner, how many consumers would not be able to hang up in
the middle of the sales pitch? Will Web shoppers develop this level of skepticism?
Or will the allure of the pseudo-personal relationship with the personality behind
the site win out? The answers to these kinds of questions will continue to provide
us insight into the social and cultural bases of our communication.
Human Kinetics Publishers

Works Cited

Susan Brown Zahn

Barnet, Richard J., and John Cavenagh. Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the
New World Order Simon & Schuster: New York, 1994.
Conlon, G., Brewer, G., Delleave, T, Jr., and J. Yarborough. “The 25 Power Brokers.” Sales
and M arketing M anagement [On-line], (July 1996): 148. Available: http://
proquest.umi.com