Thesis
Alternatives to retail : an empirical examination of four different e-commerce approaches
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2000
- Thesis identifier
- T11420
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- In recent times e-commerce has enjoyed a phenomenal rise. It is the business area that every company wants to move in to, or every potential businessperson wants to start in. There are four basic sections that e-commerce can be split into. These are: E-tail that deals in information goods, E-tail that deals in physical goods, Clicks and Mortar that deals in information goods and Clicks and Mortar that deals in physical goods. E-tail companies function entirely on the Internet. All transactions are completed over the web and goods are delivered to the customer at designated points. In the case of information goods, this could be a computer terminal somewhere, while for physical goods it could be an arranged drop-off point like the home or office, or just normal delivery by an intermediary delivery service like the post office. Clicks and Mortar businesses have a web presence to complement existing methods. More traditional companies have recognised the need to move online and create a web presence in today’s climate. However, in the case of these companies, the expense of creating an online presence must be justified through advantages created by the Internet that the company could probably not achieve otherwise. It is often the case that companies will create a web presence because ‘everybody else is’. This is a poor reason for doing so, as it will probably not have been thought through properly. There are several examples of each section of e-commerce that demonstrate what the major issues pertaining to that type of e-commerce are. It is also interesting to note how successful companies in each section are in terms of their share prices and opinion. It seems that information companies have an edge because the Internet’s interactivity allows up-to-date information to be distributed extremely quickly. Businesses can take advantage of this fact by charging different amounts for information sent at different periods. (i.e. charging less for ‘delayed’ information). Physical goods companies have more issues to consider, especially order fulfilment. It is difficult to make people wait for a good and then persuade them that the Internet is more convenient than shopping for the product personally. The Internet claims to offer immediacy but this is a contradiction. Order acceptance is immediate but order processing may not be. Someone can order wine at 2.30am but the order waits until the next morning. The order fulfilment process means the customer has to wait for that good to arrive probably the day after that. Therefore, the Internet’s convenience is offset by longer waiting periods. This will be fine when people see it as so much of an advantage not to have to shop themselves that they are happy to wait longer to receive goods. There are initiatives and constant developments to make e-commerce (of physical goods) and order-fulfilment a smoother process. These include partnerships between e-commerce companies, order-fulfilment agencies and delivery services, as well as delivery box initiatives to reduce the number of failed deliveries. E-commerce involves a cultural change on the part of shoppers and their expectations. A new supply chain is being created through the development of e-commerce and initiatives like those above. The customer is becoming more removed from the shopping process in a physical sense, although e-commerce development involves the customer in an interactive fashion by creating orders in virtual shopping baskets and the like. It appears that e-commerce development will add to shopping numbers rather than displace them. There are a number of different ways to shop online today such as digital television, games consoles and WAP / UMTS devices. Different mediums for shopping online plus various e-commerce options for customers should increase the number of shoppers and the volume of shopping as customers will buy some goods online (through various mediums) and others in a more traditional fashion. Shoppers will not move from one to the other at the present time because the Internet does not offer enough of an advantage for some goods. The main winners in the development of e-commerce are technology companies. While dot.coms fight it out at the expense of companies like boo.com, technology companies prosper because any company developing an online presence or starting a dot.com must buy the necessary hardware, software and advice. While dot.coms rely on customers for their business, technology companies rely on the dot.com trend itself.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Gibb, Forbes
- Resource Type
- DOI
Relazioni
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