Types of E-Retailers

 Mail-order Retailers that go online Avon, Mary Kay, Unilever, Sainsbury, Tesco; these companies used to advertise and sell their products via mail-orders. Although these companies still mail their product catalogs to customers, customers now prefer to order products online rather than mailing in their orders. Online-grocery shopping has become very popular in developed countries where people are busy working and delivery time is reliable.

Pure E-Retailers With the use of online malls much like Amazon or Ebay, many sellers choose to sell their products only online. These sellers are mostly small businesses and start-ups. Pure e-retailing allows sellers to better manage their stocks while minimizing costs on other areas such as the overhead cost.

Click-and-Mortar Retailers These retailers let customers view their products online as well as providing a face-to-face experience. Click and mortar retailers are sellers who have both online and physical stores. This serves a wide range of consumers due to different purchasing habits. Some people like to feel products before buying but some are comfortable buying without any physical interactions.

Direct Marketing from Manufacturers Some manufacturers communicate with their customers directly, without any online intermediaries. Obvious examples are car manufacturers and home appliance manufacturers, these manufacturers have their own websites where customers can order products online. However, most manufacturers also have in-store presence since their products are big purchases and buyers require product physical experience.

Online Malls Amazon, Ebay, Alibaba (only in China) are the most popular online malls up to date.  Most online malls act as the middle man for other companies. Some online malls sell other companies’ products as wells as their own (Amazon has Kindles). Online malls require a lot of trust to become successful. This is because customers can only rely on the specific mall’s reputation and other users’ reviews.

References

Littrell, M., Lee, S. (2005) “E-tailing: US Consumers’ Intention to Shop for Cultural Products On the Internet”. International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 33(2), pp. 133-147.

E-loyalty

One of the main critical issues in online retailing is the loyalty (Park and Kim, 2003).

Kotler and Armstrong (1989) defined customer loyalty as a customer’s repurchase intention of a specific company or product/service. Following Anderson and Srinivasan (2003), e- loyalty is defined as consumers favourable approach toward an electronic business, resulting in repeat purchasing behaviour.

E-loyal consumers, are not just ones who seeks only the lowest prices within the market, but the ones, who accepts to pay more even at the premium prices. They tend to recommend online retailer for other consumers, which results of potential in growing profit (Reichheld et al., 2000).