E-commerce strategy of retailer companies
Background:
1. The change of the market environment for retailer companies. Market share of
e-business is increasing and the shopping behavior of customers is changing,
which shows more and more people would like to use Internet shopping.
2. The competition among the traditional retailers is getting more serious. Since the
multi-national retailers expand all over the world, the competition among them is
not just limited in their domestic markets. For example, in Chinese market, the
competition is among the US retailers (e.g. Wal-Mart), French retailer (e.g.
Carrefour), Korean retailers (e.g. Lotte Mart, E-mart), other countries’ retailers
and Chinese domestic retailers.
3. Most tradition retailers have implemented the Internet strategy to start their
on-line shopping business. [1] Jesse W.J. Weltevredena, Ron A. Boschmab, (2008)
Literature review:
My plan for researching the relevant literature will be focused on several
perspectives:
1. The opportunities of e-commerce enable companies to gain operational efficiency,
personalization, and information based products and services. The benefit brought
through e-commerce is the driver for companies to adopt e-commerce strategy.
This action also will have influence on the existing organization structure of
companyies. [2] Kuo-chung Changa, Joyce Jacksona, Varun Grover, (2003)
2. The use of e-commerce technology strategy will impact the retailers’ performance
and the inherent complexity of collaboration. And the relationship between the
e-business strategy and the organization structure
3. Through adoption of e-business strategy, technologies might support customer
integration and supplier integration in the supply chain, which in turn might
impact operating performance. [3] Sarv Devaraj, Lee Krajewski, Jerry C. Wei,
(2007)
4. Depending on the value creating strategy of e-commerce companies, I will
research how to utilize the retailers’ advantages to make the e-commerce platform
more efficient in creating value after its adoption of e-commerce strategy. [4]
CHRISTOPH ZOTT, RAPHAEL AMIT, JON DONLEVY, (2000) As well as, the
e-commerce system will benefit the existing supply chain of traditional retailers,
including improvement of the information management system, suppliers and
customers management system, inventory reduction and so on.
5. The on-line and off-line image will positively impact the customers’ online
purchasing intention and behavior. This point is the most advantage of traditional
off-line retailers to enter B2C e-business comparing with pure Internet shopping
companies. Based on the existing images of retailers, their Internet shopping
business will attract quite amount of Internet shopping customers. [5]Tibert
Verhagen, Willemijn van Dolen, (2009)
6. Before the retailer company adopt the e-commerce strategy, it should analysis the
local market characters and features so as to decide whether it is fit, as well as
analysis its situation, including its multi-channel management capability,
integration capability and expectation for the e-commerce strategy. And, the
difficulties and complex of integrating an e-commerce channel should be under
the control of the retailers.
Hypotheses & Expected results:
1. E-commerce strategy will improve the retailers’ supply chain management
capabilities and efficiency
2. E-commerce strategy will broaden retailers’ suppliers and customers network,
reduce the inventory levels, so improve their value-creating ability.
3. E-commerce strategy will magnify the traditional retailers’ market and service
advantages over pure e-commerce companies.
4. E-commerce strategy will increase the retailers’ technology application capability
and information processing ability.
Future research questions:
1. Is it necessary for a traditional retailer to use the Internet strategy?
2. If the Internet strategy is necessary, what kind of strategy should be applied?
(1) Acquire a on-line shopping website;
(2) Design and make a website;
(3) Cooperate with famous online shopping companies (e.g. Amazon.com etc.)
and open on-line store in the existing platform.
3. How to integrate the Internet strategy into the company’s existing supply chain?
Reference:
1. Jesse W.J. Weltevredena, Ron A. Boschmab, (2008), Internet strategies and
performance of Dutch retailers, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 15
(2008) 163–178
2. Kuo-chung Changa, Joyce Jacksona, Varun Grover, (2003), E-commerce and
corporate strategy: an executive perspective, Information & Management 40
(2003) 663–675
3. Sarv Devaraj, Lee Krajewski, Jerry C. Wei, (2007), Impact of e-Business
technologies on operational performance: the role of production information
integration in the supply chain, Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007)
1199–1216
4. CHRISTOPH ZOTT, RAPHAEL AMIT, JON DONLEVY, (2000), Strategies for
value creation in e-commerce-- best practice in Europe, European Management
Journal Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 463–475, 2000
5. Tibert Verhagen, Willemijn van Dolen, (2009), Online purchase intentions: A
multi-channel store image perspective Information & Management 46 (2009) 77–
82
6. Sungjoo Lee, Yongtae Park, (2009), The classification and strategic management
of services in e-commerce: Development of service taxonomy based on customer
perception, Expert Systems with Applications 36 (2009) 9618–9624
Review:
First of all, you need to clarify what is “e-commerce strategy”. In order to measure the
effect of e-commerce strategy on something else, you need to first establish the
concept of e-commerce strategy – what it is, what are the components of it, etc.
Defining “strategy” is not easy thing to do because it can be planning only or
something other than mere planning – implementation. In your paper, you should
make sure whether e-commerce strategy is just planning stage, or when it is actually
implemented. There will be numerous issues and problems involved when you define
the strategy as planning AND implementation.
I think in this paper, you’d better develop the measurement for your study – not just
the literature review and concept development. That way, your concepts will be
clearer to understand, and the study will be more practical and feasible to pursue
further.