1、Retailing: Whats working online Journal of Marketing； 1999； 63, ProQuest Psychology Journals Successful companies should examine all available channels and then tailor an approach according to their capabilities. Online retailing has come a long way since the go-go years of the 1990s: it generated $
2、90 billion in revenues for US retailers in 2004, compared with just $8 billion in 1998. To study how the online strategies of todays successful retailers reflect this maturation, McKinsey analyzed the 100 largest direct retailers in North America.1 We found that direct retailers with physical stores
3、 captured 52 percent of Internet sales in 2003, while those without stores garnered just 31 percent.2 For each group, two broad strategies appear to be most successful. Together, the four models we identified have lessons for all retailers. Retailers without stores do well as either“efficiency machi
4、nes” or “niche leaders.” The first approach is best for sellers of relatively low-margin products like CDs, books, or computers, because the Web provides the global reach these companies need to gain scale. Efficiency machines such as Amazon and Dellinvest heavily in brand marketing, innovative Web
5、sites, and highly efficient sourcing and fulfillment processes. These investments create massive fixed costs, often running into the hundreds of millions of dollars, so efficiency machines must generate annual revenues of at least $750 million to be profitable. Such retailers, once successful, tend
6、to generate strong cash flows,however. Amazon invested more than$400 million in marketing and technology in 2004, for example, while generating $477 million in free cash. The largest efficiency machines drive repeat business by offering deals to customers (for example,Amazons $79 annual membership,
7、that includes unlimited two -day shipping). Of the top 100 direct retailers, only 7 are efficiency machines, yet they account fora quarter of total online revenues. Niche leaders, such as L. L. Bean3and Ross-Simons, sell higher-priced, higher-margin products (like apparel or jewelry) primarily throu
8、gh catalogs and over the Internet. Niche leaders build a loyal customer baseby offering quality merchandise, exceptional service, or both. The ability to acquireand retain customers is crucial, sincemost niche leaders are too small to afford expensive brand marketing and must relyinstead on targeted
9、 online or direct-mailcampaigns. The most innovative nicheleaders coordinate their channels by makingproducts from their catalogs easy to order online, for example, or by using their Website to display a wider selection of products than a print catalog could accommodate profitably. The 28 niche lead
10、ers we studiedgenerated nearly $15 billion in revenues17 percent of which came from theInternetand account for 6 percent of totalonline revenues. Store-based retailers do well as either “traffic drivers” or “triple plays,” depending on their scale and profit margins. Retailers with relatively low ma
11、rgins and large scale succeed most often as traffic drivers. These companies use the Internet both to draw customers to their physical stores and to offer shoppers a wider selection of goods and greater convenience. Traffic drivers, such as Target, The Home Depot, and Wal-Mart Stores, attract shoppe
12、rs using a variety of techniquesgift cards, rich-media advertisements, online circulars, and e-mail notification. Since traffic drivers tend to sell low-margin products at many price points, understanding the economics of different channels and how fulfillment costs can eat into profits is critical.
13、 Traffic drivers promote their highest-margin products (such as bedding and apparel) online, for instance, while displaying just enough other merchandise to reflect the broad range of products available in stores. Although stores generate most of the sales for traffic drivers, these retailerswith ne
14、arly $ 35 billion in annual revenues, on averageare so big that their Web-based sales are still impressive, accounting for 35 percent of total online revenues. “Triple-play” retailers, such as J. C. Penney and Williams-Sonoma, use stores, catalogs, and the Internet to maximize their share of custome
15、r spending. These merchants sell relatively high-margin products (home goods or apparel, for instance) while striving to tailor their channels to complement one another fully. Catalogs attract new customers, drive repeat business, and coordinate product lines； the Web offers convenience, product inf
16、ormation ,and quick updates for pricing or promotions； stores, by contrast, allow shoppers to handle and test goods before they buy them. The challenge for triple plays is to understand how customers use each channel, to match products to that channels economics, and to create a consistent customer
17、experience across all of them. Triple-play retailers generated nearly $6 billion in 2003, some 17 percent of total online revenues. The internet is the foundation for B2B commerce that provides the technology and platform to enable this business relationships work effectively. B2B transactions over
18、public and private sectors uses the internet as a delivery vehicle for transactions including； financial transfer, on-line exchanges, auctions, delivery of products, and services (OReily and Finnegan, 2007). Many practitioners are predicting B2B commerce is expected to have a massive growth and majo
19、rity of the organisations will have to give consideration to involve with B2B commerce. Referring to Figure 5, B2B consists of three main elements and the e-marketplace performs the main tasks such as sourcing, automated purchasing, processing to facilitate the sellers and buyers to do business tran
20、sactions. Laudon and Laudon (2000) stated that B2B e-marketplace refers to the exchange of information, products, services, and payment via the internet between buyers and sellers. B2B e-marketplaces are typically defined as inter-organisational IS through which multiple buyers and sellers interact
21、electronically to identify potential trading partners, select them and execute transactions (Rohmtal.2004). Argued that, B2B e-marketplace is able to remove some of the inefficiency of traditional business functionality and allows partners to streamline their marketing activities by sharing informat
22、ion instantaneously. In recent years, B2B e-marketplace have improved/enhanced the extent of e-marketing activities； providing to all marketers especially to SMEs. Recent studies (Narayanasamy ET al.2008； Pavaloia, 2009) are indicative of the fact that SMEs have started to respond positively to the
23、changes brought about by the internet technologies. While the main concerns of SMEs are related to the generic SMEs characteristics of limited time/resources and expertise, B2B e-marketplace provide a favorable environment for SMEs to； lower operating and marketing cost, better opportunity to promot
24、e their products/services, and enrich their overall marketing communications mix. Overall, the benefits of B2B e-marketplace as reported by many academics and practitioners include: reducing search costs by facilitating comparison of price, products, and services(Kandampully, 2003； Bakos, 1998； Kapl
25、an and Sawhney, 2000)；.improving production and supply capability (Barua et al. , 1997； Albrecht et al. ,2005)；.improving personalization and customization of product offerings (Bakos, 1998)；.enhancing customers relationships (Kierzkowski et al.1996)；.reducing marketing costs compare to traditional
26、marketing media (Sculley andWoods, 2001)；.reducing numbers of marketing staff (Gloor, 2000). However, the current literatures do not fully explore the issues relating to the performances of B2B e-marketplace from an e-marketing perspective. In addition, much of the research is focused on particular
27、research areas of interest often ignoring the links to others dimensions in particular e-marketing services. Hence, there are concerns that the despite the efforts to promote adoption of B2B e-marketplace from an e-marketing perspective, SMEs are not fully aware of the opportunities and benefits (St
28、ockdale and Standing, 2004). The literature provides insights into the current level of internet-enabler marketing technologies from B2B e-marketplace to the marketers. The online and offline publications from both academics and practitioners indicated that, e-marketing via B2B e-marketplace is a mo
29、dern marketing practice for buying and selling goods/services, exchange information/ideas via the internet associated with communication and promotional purposes. The frameworks suggested by various authors including Chaffey (2004), Gloor (2000), Kierzkowski et al. (1996) makes a significant contrib
30、ution to knowledge in the areas of e-marketing that has the potential to create competitive advantage and enhance customer value. However, it appears that there is limited exploitation of such frameworks by industry professional. In order to develop a better understanding of the topic under study, t
31、his paper will adapt a multidisciplinary approach by integrating； traditional SMEs marketing, e-marketing, IS/IT, and B2B e-marketplace to develop an e-marketing framework that will offer a greater value for SMEs. As these models indicate, retailers that analyze all their channels and make thoughtfu
32、l, strategic choices can enjoy exceptional results. Todays top Internet retailers understand the need for complementary on- and offline strategies, coordinated marketing, and balanced investment. Without an integrated strategy, store-based retailers seeking to boost sales through the Web or catalogs
33、 risk simply shifting sales volume to these direct channels and destroying profitability because of the added costs of fulfillment and overhead. To succeed, multichannel retailers must coordinate their online, catalog, and store activities to convert customers and encourage them to spend more. Such retailers must also develop efficient processes for capturing and fulfilling orders and ensure that consumer insights are shared across all parts of the organization.
