INTEGRATION OF E-COMMERCE WITH TRADITIONAL BRICK-AND-MORTAR RETAIL TRADE

Abstract

The proliferation of e-commerce has caused negative impacts on traditional brick-and-mortar retail trade, amidst positive ones. The focus of this dissertation is to proposing a solution – the integration of e-commerce with traditional brick-and-mortar shops.

An ideal mixture of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies was adopted. A quantitative research study was done via two survey questionnaires, conducted on 200 consumer respondents and 50 retailer respondents separately. The survey done on consumers was to study their shopping behavior and preferences and thus investigate the factors which cause consumers to turn from traditional brick-and-mortar retail shops to e-commerce retail. The survey done on retailers was to investigate their difficulty levels, readiness and perceptiveness of moving towards e-commerce retail methods. Qualitatively, two in-depth interviews and one focus group interview is being done to explore the feasibility of the integration of e-commerce and traditional brick-and-mortar trade. We also wanted to gauge their thoughts on the retail industry’s readiness level towards this integration for optimal consumer benefit.

From the research analysis, a majority of retailers actually benefitted from the decreased rents and increase in their sales volume due to the proliferation of e-commerce. The study also found that e-commerce might not have a prolonged negative impact on brick-and-mortar retail, especially when retailers can make use of e-commerce in the 21st century as a tool to strengthen his physical retail presence. There is no other way but to encourage more traditional retailers to jump on the 21st Century bandwagon.