During the previous years there has been a lot of focus on e-commerce in the fashion and clothing industry and that everything will be bought online in the future. However, several e-commerce companies have decided to expand into offline retail. This dissimilarity between theory and reality creates an interest for further research and a curiosity of how the future within retail will develop. The purpose of this research is to understand why Swedish online fashion retailers expand through an offline strategy. An Expansion Theme Model, which emerged from the theoretical framework, is used throughout the research to create a cohesive presentation of the material. In this research two case studies were conducted with e-commerce companies that are moving towards offline retail, one that is planning to open their own offline store and the other that is selling to external offline retailers. The findings present the reasons for expanding into offline retail according to the respondents in the two cases. Two reasons that were discussed in both cases were to enhance the brand image and use offline retailing as a marketing tool to reach a larger customer group and ultimately enhance the company’s profit. The findings present several problems within each case that can be solved by expanding into offline retail. The first problem is about suppliers that protect offline retailers. The second problem is about how to reach the minimum quantities that the suppliers require. The third problem is how to achieve a better negotiation power with the suppliers. The fourth problem discusses the challenge of displaying products online. The view of the future within retail is also presented, where all of the respondents agreed that the two selling channels will be more integrated in the future. Finally, the transition towards offline retail creates many new possibilities in the world of retail that is yet undiscovered and it is therefore exciting to follow this development.

This paper studies the relationship between e-commerce diffusion and number of local establishments in the Nordic regions. The analysis is built upon a model which specifies an industry model with consumers search costs buying from heterogenous producers by Goldmanis et al (2010).  E-commerce technology features, such as price comparison websites, have dramatically lowered consumers’ search costs in the online market. Regressions will be tested on the retail sale of three different sectors: food and tobacco, information and communication equipment, and cultural and recreation goods sectors. The results will be compared to the total retail sale sector, and towards the online-only retail sector. Many jobs are on the line if the trend continues to close down local retail stores, and this paper will give an update on where the number of local retail establishments are heading for both policymakers and firm management. / Den här studien undersöker sambandet mellan e-handels påverkan på antal lokala varuhandel butiker i nordiska regionen. Analysen bygger på en modell som specificerar konsumenters sökkostnader inom en industri som köper från heterogena producenter av Goldmanis (2010). Prisjämförelse hemsidor har drastiskt sänkt konsumenters sökkostnader efter det lägsta priset för en given vara inom e-handel. För att undersöka hur lokala butiker har påverkats kommer regressioner att genomföras för att testa sambandet mellan ökad e-handel och antalet lokala butiker inom industrierna mat och tobaks, IT och kultur. Resultaten kommer att jämföras med den totala handeln för all varuförsäljning, samt mot e-handeln. Många jobb kan komma att försvinna inom en snar framtid om trenden hos företag fortsätter att stänga lokala butiker. Den här studien kommer att ge en uppdaterad bild hur det ser ut för antalet lokala butiker i den nordiska regionen som kommer att vara användbart för beslutsfattare och ledningen inom företag som verkar inom varuhandel.