Ch. 8: Online Retail & Services Flashcards
What are the 7 major firm types that the retail industry can be divided into
- general merchandise
- durable goods
- specialty stores
- food & beverage
- gasoline & fuel
- MOTO
- online retail firms
What are the 4 original aspects in the vision for e-commerce retail (hyper mediation)
- the Internet reduced both search and transaction costs
- entry costs to the online market < those needed to establish physical storefronts
- As prices fell, traditional offline physical store merchants would be forced out of business
- For certain industries, the market would be disinter mediated as manufacturers/distributors entered to build a direct relationships w/the consumer-destroying retail intermediaries
What concept is hyper-mediation based on
A virtual firm in which online retailers would gain advantage over established offline merchants by building an online brand name and outsourcing expensive warehousing & order fulfillment functions
What are 4 characteristics of the online retail sector today
- online market entry costs underestimated + cost of acquiring new customers
- traditional firms taking over as the top online retail sites
- disintermediation didn’t occur
- ->multi-channel integration - growth in social e-commerce
- ->location-based marketing, growing mobile platform, marketing and purchasing on social network sites
What are the 4 types of online retail business models
- virtual merchants
- bricks-and-clicks
- catalog merchants
- manufacturer-direct
virtual merchants
single-channel web firms that generate almost all of their revenue from online sales
What are 3 characteristics/challenges of virtual merchants
- most build a business and brand from scratch
- online stores: no costs for building and maintaining physical stores, but rather a website, order fulfillment infrastructure, and developing a brand
- high customer acquisition costs and steep learning curve
bricks-and-clicks
companies that have a network of physical stores as their primary retail channel, but have also introduced online offerings
What are 3 challenges in the bricks-and-clicks business model?
- high cost of physical buildings
- high cost of large sales staff
- need to coordinate prices across channels
What is a benefit of the bricks-and-clicks business model
less expensive to acquire customers b/c of brand name
catalog merchants
established companies that have a national offline catalog operation that is their largest retails channels, but who have recently developed online capabilities
What are 3 challenges to the catalog merchants business model?
- high costs for printing & mailing
- the need to leverage existing assets and competencies to the new technology environment
- building a credible website
What is a benefit of catalog merchant business model?
already have very efficient order entry and fulfillment systems
manufacturer-direct
single or multi-channel manufacturers who sell directly online to consumers w/o the intervention of retailers
What are 3 challenges to the manufacturer-direct business model?
- channel conflict
- quickly developing a rapid-response online order and fulfillment system
- switching from a supply-push to demand-pull model (product made prior to orders based on estimates to products built upon receiving demand)