The case focuses on opportunities and challenges for a traditional, bricks-and-mortar retailer to use the Internet as an added channel. A major implementation issue, which raised a heated debate among retailers, concerns Tesco.coms order fulfilment approach, based on in-store picked (rather than dedicated warehouses). It also insists on how can one make Internet retailing a profit-making story.
- Better understand how to optimise the mix of bricks and clicks in a retailing strategy
- Be able to address Internet-based retailing as a business, not a technological issue
- Recognise the critical importance of operations and logistics in e-retailing
- Realise that in e-retailing, profit-making results from well-coordinated multi-functional implementation.
- Internet
- Retailing
- Logistics
- Business model
- Business-to-consumer
- Bricks and clicks
- Customer service
