Le e-commerce (document en anglais)

INTRODUCTION

Internet has totally disrupted our society and has broken the traditional codes of consumption. Indeed, the perpetual technologic progress enables more and more people all over the world to be on Internet and thus contributes incessantly to the growth of the electronic commerce (or e-commerce). The field of e-commerce is always increasing and new developments happen every time. Before dealing with this subject, we have to define what means ‘e-commerce’. According to Turban (2012), e-commerce refers to “the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services, and/or information via computer networks, mostly the Internet and intranets”. Besides, e-commerce is largely related to the following market segments: business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C), consumer to consumer (C2C) and consumer to business (C2B). Nowadays, e-commerce business model operates in several sectors: e-marketing, e-CRM (i.g. Customer Relationship Management), e-government, m-commerce, e-retailing, etc. This paper will deal with one of these categories, that is to say: e-retailing. According to Turban (2012), e-retailing refers to: “retailing conducted online, over the Internet”. Usually online retailing operates through B2C market segment and is about the sale products and/or services. Today, more and more retailers choose a hybrid strategy in order to maximize their revenue by combining ‘traditional’ physical stores and an online transactional website: the ‘click-and-mortar’ (or click-and-brick) retailers. In other words, the primary business is done in the physical world while some e-commerce activities are conducted online. In order to understand the link between all these concepts, we will answer the following question: To what extent the click-and-mortar strategy is a winning combination for retailers? In order to identify the interest of this specific subject and to answer the question mentioned above, this paper will first present the ‘click-and-mortar’ concept in depth, its origins and its actual development. Then, the main stakes will be analyzed as well as the benefits of the ‘click-and-mortar’ strategy. Eventually, it will describe and analyze the particular e-retailing strategy of the Macdonald company through its French transactional website ‘gomcdo.fr’.

FINDINGS

History and concept

Web-to-store concept describes the users ‘s behavior look for information on the web before buying in store.

In the 90s, the “E-commerce” emerged. This new channel indeed allowed to buy without moving.

In the days, many sociologists panicked at the idea of ​​a social cataclysm, and described the risk of streets and shops completely deserted.

Fifteen years later, the disaster has not occurred and 92% of purchases are still in stores. Indeed, there are a lot of barriers to buying online: cost of delivery, no opportunity to touch and see the product, or to receive advice.

Meanwhile, Internet has become part of the culture. 86% of Internet users choose network for finding information in two clicks. The emergence of web-to-store is explained by the fact that, even if consumers use Internet to search for information, the majority of them make their purchases in stores. This is a logical evolution of e-commerce to its mature phase, a kind of e-commerce version 2.

For nearly three quarters of Internet users, Internet has now become an indispensable research tool before moving on store.

In 2011, all brands spoke web-to-store but never really know how to integrate in their strategies. Since then, the situation has changed.

Internet users who want to buy in stores don’t find easily available information on the web dedicated to stores (such as the availability of stocks).

For example in the fashion industry, a majority of visitors did not intend to buy online, but do, what we could call the pre-shopping, they collect information before going in store to view the product. The lack of store information can be a barrier to a possible move and purchase.

In fact, by displaying information dedicated to stores, one study shown that some retailers have seen their traffic store from 5 to 8%.

All that reason can explain the growing. Indeed in 2015, 45% of retail sales in France will be influenced by Internet research (figures by Cabinet Forrester Research 2012).

There is no one approach web-to-store, but several approaches. Indeed, there is two types of players in the sector, internal and external.

Internal web to store approach

The internal approach offer turnkey solutions to retailers for their web and mobile media

Online store locator: It is the basic tool in web to store concept. It offers the possibility to users to know the exact location of the various stores and deduct the closest address to go there.

For a company which has many stores as Burger King for example, it could be interesting for customer regarding their actual position to see the nearest fast food.

Product

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