Fiona Ellis-Chadwick

Retailer adoption of the Internet – Implications for retail marketing

To date, most of the commentary on the impact of the Internet on retail marketing has been anecdotal, offering exaggerated speculative forecasts of its future potential. One view contends that the Internet will become a major new retail format, replacing the traditional dominance of fixed location stores. However, little academic research exists to either disprove or support the claims of Internet penetration by retailers. Seeks to redress the balance by presenting a comprehensive and rigorous review of UK retailer Internet activities. A sampling frame of 1,099 UK retail multiples was used, and each Web site individually inspected to categorise the range of marketing functions and services offered. The findings indicated that, despite the hype, the majority of retail organisations surveyed have not yet registered a Web site address. Moreover, of those retail organisations that have developed a Web site, the vast majority are using it primarily as a communication tool to promote corporate or product information to Internet users, rather than to support direct sales. In conclusion, summarises the implications of these current levels of Internet activity for the future of retail marketing.

Cyber retailing in the UK: the potential of the Internet as a retail channel

A myriad opinions have been propounded to explain how “cyberspace” can be exploited by commercial organisations. For the most part they are speculative, visionary or promotional. This work seeks to redress the balance by focusing on the utilisation of the Internet within the UK retail sector and examining its potential as a new retail channel. The paper presents an exploratory study using qualitative and quantitative methods: an on‐line survey of retail Web activities followed by in‐depth interviews. This approach provides a framework of current retail usage of the Internet and explores retailers’ perceptions of the inhibitors and facilitators to its development. It concludes with an emerging model that explains why current levels of retailing on the Internet are low and provides guidance for retailers wishing to increase their level of Internet activity.

Internet retailing: the past, the present and the future

Purpose – The primary aim of this paper is to critically review the literature that explicitly addresses the adoption, application and impact of internet technologies, by retailers, for the promotion and sale of merchanidise. In particular, this paper seeks to present a holistic and critical review of the early predictions, with regard to the uptake and impact of internet retailing; critically reappraise these claims in light of current trends in internet retailing; and explore where e‐tailing may be heading in the coming years.Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts an extensive and critical review of the literature, with regard to the adoption, uptake and impact of internet retailing, as published in the academic literature over the past 20 years.Findings – In hindsight, it can be seen that many of the original predictions, made at the dawn of the internet era, have not become a reality: retailers are not cannibalising their own custom, virtual merchants are not dominating the market‐place, and t...

Signs of change? A longitudinal study of Internet adoption in the UK retail sector

The Internet and the World Wide Web have changed quite significantly in a relatively short period of time. Some of the differences are readily quantifiable or at least easily visible; e.g., exponential growth rates in the number of users, rapid expansion in the number of personal and business web sites, an increase in transmission speeds and the advent of new markup scripts, such as DHTML. Whilst these quantifiable changes and technological improvements are a valuable benchmark when considering the practical ramifications of developing an on-line business, from a strategic perspective it is perhaps more important to consider the extent to which Internet technologies are likely to effect long-term changes to organisational behaviour and economic activity. For instance, in the book retailing business, Internet vendors, benefiting from comparatively low on-line set-up costs, have been able to use price as a major marketing tool. This action has resulted in reduced profit margins across the sector. Therefore, from a retailers perspective perhaps the most important issue to resolve is not whether there are sufficient customers on-line but how e-commerce is likely to reshape their markets and business processes. However, little academic research exists which has recorded Internet adoption trends, over time, making assessment of such issues difficult. This paper seeks to redress the balance by presenting a comprehensive and rigorous longitudinal review of the adoption of e-commerce within the UK retail sector. More specifically, the paper provides an up to date assessment of the state of e-commerce within the UK retail sector, before reviewing trends in its adoption over a four-year period form 1997 to 2000. The key finding is that whilst clear evidence of growth has been found across all types of retailers, it is fastest amongst larger retailers, and those operating in sectors such as books, alcoholic beverages and mail order. The paper concludes by offering implications for retail practitioners and for research.

An analysis of the factors affecting the adoption of the Internet in the UK retail sector

A multitude of opinions has been propounded to explain how the Internet can be exploited by commercial organisations. For the most part, they are speculative, visionary, or promotional. This work seeks to redress the balance by reporting on an empirical research project that has recently been conducted into the adoption of the Internet within the UK retail sector. More specifically, the research reports on the application of multivariate statistical techniques to a set of questionnaire responses, with a view to critically evaluating the factors that affect the adoption of the Internet. It has been shown that certain factors are far more significant than others in influencing the adoption decision. In particular, it has been demonstrated that operating in an appropriate market sector and having a positive view of the viability of the Internet are of particular significance. Furthermore, the importance of developing a coherent and integrated Internet strategy, the need for senior management commitment, and the presence of an appropriate infrastructure and development capability are also highlighted.

New perspectives in internet retailing: a review and strategic critique of the field

Purpose – The primary aim of this paper is to critically review the literature that explicitly addresses the adoption and application of internet technologies, by retailers, for the promotion and sale of merchandise. In particular, this study seeks to present a holistic and critical review of what is currently known, in order to help establish the gaps that will need to be addressed in future research studies.Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts both quantitative and qualitative approaches to conduct the review, in an attempt to ensure that it is well focused and systematic.Findings – The key finding of this study is that whilst the internet retailing literature is extremely wide‐ranging, and somewhat fragmented, it can be decomposed into three broad categories: the retailer perspective; the consumer perspective; and the technological perspective. Moreover, it has been noted that whilst the strategic potential of the internet is routinely mentioned in nearly all studies of electronic retailing, ...

The relationship between retailers’ targeting and e‐commerce strategies: an empirical analysis

There has been a strong focus in the literature upon the factors that affect the adoption of e‐commerce, and the demographics of Internet users, but few attempts to link these two bodies of knowledge. This empirical study investigates the extent to which the adoption of e‐commerce amongst retailers is influenced by the socio‐demographic characteristics of their target customers. The questionnaire was mailed to senior marketing executives in the UK’s largest retail organisations, and ultimately resulted in the receipt of 164 useable replies, giving an overall response rate of 18 per cent. The results of a set of analyses demonstrate that organisations are most likely to adopt the Internet for information provision, marketing and direct sales purposes if their typical customer is male, young and a member of the professional/managerial classes. This is not surprising, as young, professional males are typically enthusiastic and competent users of information technologies.

An empirical study of the uptake of performance measurement by Internet retailers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: to identify levels of uptake of performance measurement by small and medium‐sized retail companies selling goods online, and to determine key factors, which could explain any variation in use of performance indicators. The study is designed to explore these issues by this type of retailer as currently understanding is fairly limited.Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative mail questionnaire was used to survey UK retailers selling goods online. The questionnaire examined the uptake of performance measurement in conjunction with the business profile of each of the 252 responding companies.Findings – The results show great variation in levels and extent of uptake of performance measurement by online retailers in the UK. Company profile variables: size and operating format help to account for the variation in the number of indicators measured.Research limitations/implications – The sample frame has some limitations insofar as the study only focused on small...

Institutional responses to electronic procurement in the public sector

Purpose – The primary aim of the research presented in this paper is to address the gap in the literature with regard to the factors that affect the uptake and application of e‐procurement within the public sector.Design/methodology/approach – This analysis was achieved through five in‐depth case studies – based upon extensive interviews, observation and documentation reviews ‐ conducted within central and local government organisations.Findings – The study shows that despite being very different in terms of their form and function, each of the five case study organisations had achieved similar levels of progress in terms of their adoption of e‐procurement technologies. In short every organisation had already adopted BACS, all five were also actively planning to implement: e‐tendering; e‐award; e‐contract and e‐catalogue systems, but none had any intention of adopting e‐marketplaces or e‐auctions.Research limitation/implications – The results of this study will help individual organisations to better unde...

Evaluating the role of electronic commerce in transforming the retail sector

At the very dawn of the Internet, it was prophesied that this era would ultimately represent the ‘most important wave in the information revolution’ (Evans and Wurster 1997, 70), and so it has proved to be. The world-wide web has provided a radically different and a highly effective communications channel, which offers unparalleled opportunities to individuals and organisations across the globe. More specifically, the Internet differed from prior technologies in terms of its: global reach; ease of access; ability to communicate large amounts of information, cost efficiency and ease of maintenance, as well as its enhanced interactivity, flexibility and speed (Jones and Vijayasarathy 1998; Pyle 1996). Very quickly, such capabilities were being harnessed in a wide variety of sectors, including defence, banking, manufacturing, healthcare and education. However, it was quickly recognised that it was among retailers that the most significant impacts of the Internet were likely to be experienced. Indeed, looking back at the first 15 years of online retailing, it can be argued that the retail community has made very considerable headway in harnessing the Internet’s power to change the way it conducts its business. The Internet’s scope and interactivity has provided retailers with the opportunity to both transform their customers’ shopping experience (Evanschitzky et al. 2004; Wolfinbarger and Gilly 2003), and to strengthen their own competitive positions (Doherty and Ellis-Chadwick 2009; Levenburg 2005). In the early days, the Internet was viewed primarily as a means for retailers to affect fairly basic two-way communication with their customers, but within a relatively short space of time websites became far more sophisticated, to the extent that they now can be used to: purchase and pay for merchandise, promote goods and services, collect market research data, and track orders (Basu and Muylle 2003; Doherty and Ellis-Chadwick 2009). In so doing, the Internet has provided retailers with a highly effective mechanism for: broadening target markets, improving customer communications, extending product lines, improving cost efficiency, enhancing customer relationships and delivering customised offers (Srinivasan, Anderson, and Kishore 2002). By and large, consumers have responded enthusiastically to these innovations (Soopramanien and Robertson 2007), and online retail sales have grown significantly over the past 15 years, and are predicted to continue rising well into the future (Ellis-Chadwick, Doherty, and Hart 2002; Ho, Kauffman, and Liang 2007). Given the Internet’s potential to radically re-configure the underlying processes of retailing, and because of the highly dynamic and innovative nature of the electronic marketplace, there has been an explosion of academic interest in the application of this new electronic phenomenon in the retail context. It is not, perhaps, surprising that from such a highly dynamic organisational phenomenon, an The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research Vol. 20, No. 4, September 2010, 375–378