Coordinating Internet Sales with Other Channels

The continuinggrowth of global Internet usage has a remarkable impact on retailing businesses. Customers expect to do business not only through stationary sales channels, but also to order online, pushing companies to introduce e-commerce sales channels. The distribution of goods through newly introduced e-commerce sales channels offers retailers opportunities such as the cost-effective enlargement of their assortment and the attraction of new customers. However, it alsoimplicatesa number ofproblems. In the past, channel con?ictswere usuallyavoided byd- ferentiating the offerings of sales channels. Today, offerings are typically coordinated between a company's e-commerce and other sales channels. In such cases, customers can seamlessly switch between different contact points during their buying process, for example they get the same products for the same price in the different sales channels. Such coordinated sales channels certainly affect the internal organizational structure of such multichannel retailers. Adequate performance measurement systems are needed to manage the resulting risks (for example channel con?icts) and utilize possible synergy effects. In this book, a design of a performance measurement system for multichannel retailing is presented. It addresses the coordination of distributionchannels from a performance measurement's persp- tive. The author places this book in the context of recent marketing, performance measurement and e-commerce literature. The ?rst part reviews the relevant literature. E-commerce business models for multichannel retailers and their strategic options are discussed. Furthermore, the requirements for modern performance measurement systems are presented. A whole section of the book is devoted to the discussion of successfactors for multichannel e-commerce retailers.