Investigating the Impact of Firm Strategy – Click-and-Brick, Brick-and-Mortar, and Pure-Click – on Financial Performance

Attracted by the numerous benefits of E-commerce, many traditional brick-and-mortar firms have embraced the Internet to supplement their business operations and have adopted the “click-and-brick” approach. Despite these changes, insufficient empirical research has been conducted on the impact of different firm types on financial performance. Based on the resource-based view, this study presents empirical research examining the possible ramifications and an overall impact. This study does this by comparing financial performance of click-and-brick firms with the performance of traditional, as well as pure-click firms that rely solely on the Internet.E-commerce, pure-click, click-and-brick, brick-and-mortar, financial performance, resourced-based view

Adding Bricks to Clicks: The Contingencies Driving Cannibalization and Complementarity in Multichannel Retailing

This paper empirically explores the contingencies that drive cannibalizing and complementary effects across channels to provide sales forecasting, promotion planning, and customer relationship management guidance to multichannel managers. We investigate three contingencies in a sales analysis of a leading U.S. retailer who adds a new retail store channel to existing catalog and online channels. We show that the emergence and strength of cannibalizing and complementary effects varies over time, across type of channel, and by type of customer, and provide insight into when and where managers can expect these effects to dominate and how to counter cannibalization and promote complementarity across channels. We find that opening retail stores cannibalizes sales in the catalog and online channels in the short term, but produces complementary effects in both channels in the long term; cannibalization is magnified in the catalog channel, while complementarity is magnified in the online channel. Customer analysis suggests that opening retail stores paves the way for higher rates of customer acquisition and higher rates of repeat purchasing among existing customers in the direct channels in the long term.Multichannel Retailing, Channels of Distribution, Direct Marketing, E-commerce, Channel Management

The importance of service branding in multi channel e commerce success: Towards a research framework

Better customer service and the corresponding increase in customer loyalty and overall spend are frequently cited as the reasons multi-channel retailers are more profitable than pure-play e-tailers and traditional bricks and mortar organisations. This implies that multi-channel retailers need a strong service brand to achieve the benefits of multi-channel e-commerce. Considerable literature exists on services branding and on multi-channel e-commerce strategy but few studies have explored the relationship between the two. In this work-in-progress we discuss the importance of services branding in multi-channel e-commerce and develop a research framework for the impact of multi-channel e-commerce strategy elements on services branding

B2c e-commerce adoption in inner cities: An evolutionary perspective

Internet makes it possible for consumers to shop without visiting a physical store. As online shopping is becoming more popular, this could have significant impact on in-store shopping. The extent to which consumers, producers and retailers make use of the Internet as a complementary channel or as a substitute for in-store shopping is fundamental for the way traditional retailing will be affected. It is only recently that geographers are becoming interested in the spatial consequences of this new form of commerce. From a traditional geographical perspective, one could expect that business-to-consumer (b2c) e-commerce could make physical shopping redundant, leading to a ‘death of distance’. There are, however, several factors that may limit this new form of commerce, such as logistical constraints (e.g., personal delivery of goods may be quite expensive), habits of people, and the need for social contact. The main goal of the paper is to draw some expectations concerning the relationship between b2c e-commerce and inner city retailing. Using new insights based on evolutionary economics, hypotheses will be developed concerning the impact of b2c e-commerce on consumers’ shopping behaviour, retailers’ store strategy, and the inner city retailing environment as a whole. We claim that habits may act as a constraint to change consumers’ shopping behaviour. In addition, routines can explain why retailers may be rather reluctant in exploiting this new channel of commerce, and why they are most likely to adopt rather conservative e-commerce strategies. We also explain how and why inner cities, as important retailing and consumption places, may affect the way actors deal with this new form of commerce. One may expect that especially in these localities, both stimulating and limiting factors of b2c e-commerce adoption are predominant, depending on the quality or the attractiveness of the inner cities, among other things.evolutionary economics, e-commerce, urban economics

A value-based approach to developing a multi-channel shopper typology

Consumers are increasingly expecting retailers to provide them with information, products and services through multiple retail channels ranging from physical stores, catalogue to Website. However, there is currently a lack of understanding in what multi-channel shopping attributes consumers really value. This poses a challenge to retailers who are attempting to integrate their retail channels. Drawing upon prior work in retail patronage behaviour and synthesizing research in traditional retailing and single-channel e-commerce, this paper identified six dimensions that can be used to classify consumers into a shopper typology based on their utilitarian values. Based on the pilot study’s preliminary results, we derived a typology comprising of three types of multi-channel shoppers that differed in terms of information and service expectations. The results offer useful insights to retailers when formulating multi-channel retail strategies. This exploratory study also laid the foundation for future research in the domain of multi-channel retailing

Strategic Behaviour and Performance of internet use by Second-hand Spanish Car Dealers

Documento de Trabajo 04/10 perteneciente a la colección de documentos de trabajo "Nuevas Tendencias en Dirección de Empresas", dentro del Máster en Investigación en Economía y Empresa.[ES] La venta de vehículos de segunda mano a través de Internet está creciendo continuamente, no sólo en los países europeos, sino también en el mercado español. El desarrollo de nuevas tecnologías de información permite a los distribuidores a ampliar sus servicios a nivel mundial, dando a los clientes una amplia gama de opciones en la búsqueda de información y recolección de recursos. Cuestionarios presentados a los concesionarios de automóviles españoles de segunda mano se han utilizado para analizar las tendencias, el comportamiento, la estrategia de recursos y el desempeño en el medio electrónico. Las conclusiones nos permiten mostrar cómo la estrategia de diferenciación en el canal de Internet contribuye a un mejor desempeño de los distribuidores, con el precio es una variable que no son pertinentes en las etapas iniciales del proceso de compra, sólo cada vez más importante durante la visita final a la actual distribuidor. Por otra parte, se demuestra que las capacidades organizativas de la empresa predecir su compromiso con el canal electrónico, que ayuda a explicar el rendimiento general alcanzado.[EN] The sale of second-hand vehicles over the Internet is continuously growing not only in European countries but also in the Spanish market. The development of new information technologies allows dealers to extend their services globally, giving customers a wide range of options in the search for information and gathering of resources. Questionnaires submitted to Spanish second-hand car dealers have been used to analyse tendencies, behaviour, resource strategy and performance in the electronic medium. The conclusions reached enable us to show how the differentiation strategy in the Internet channel contributes to a better performance by dealers, with price being a non-relevant variable in the initial stages of the purchase process, only becoming important during the final visit to the actual dealer’s. Furthermore, it is proven that a company’s organizational capabilities predict its commitment to the electronic channel, helping to explain the general performance achieved

People in the E-Business: New Challenges, New Solutions

[Excerpt] Human Resource Planning Society’s (HRPS) annual State of the Art/Practice (SOTA/P) study has become an integral contributor to HRPS’s mission of providing leading edge thinking to its members. Past efforts conducted in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999 have focused on identifying the issues on the horizon that will have a significant impact on the field of Human Resources (HR). This year, in a divergence from past practice, the SOTA/P effort aimed at developing a deeper understanding of one critical issue having a profound impact on organizations and HR, the rise of e-business. The rise of e-business has been both rapid and dramatic. One estimate puts the rate of adoption of the internet at 4,000 new users each hour (eMarketer, 1999) resulting in the expectation of 250 million people on line by the end of 2000, and 350 million by 2005 (Nua, 1999). E-commerce is expected to reach $1.3 trillion by 2003, and of that, 87 percent will go to the business to business (B2B) and 13 percent to the business to consumer (B2C) segments, respectively (Plumely, 2000)

Retailing 4.0: The New Era of E-commerce in Fast Moving Consumer Goods

The arrival of the online channel has initiated a new cycle in competitiveness among retailers characterized by shoppers' increasing nomadism around physical and digital touch points. The present work adopts a supply-side analytical approach to highlight drivers and perspectives of e-commerce development within the grocery sector. Research results emphasize that: (i) online-native retailers hold a well-established position of leadership worldwide and thus fundamentally influence e-grocery dynamics as a whole; (ii) the e-commerce channel is characterized by profit margins that are significantly lower than store-based channel ones. This represents the main limitation to online grocery sales growth, above all for offline-native retailers who maintain core business in their bricks & mortar stores