Researchers have been quick to illustrate how traditional retail theory can be adapted to e-tail (Spiller and Lohse, 1997, 1998; Eroglu, Machleit and Davis, 2000). Similarly traditional high street retailers (bricks and mortar retailers) have sought to replicate their offering on-line via the internet. Despite the apparent parallels between on-line and in-store retail, practitioners merely replicating their in-store offering on-line have been unable to compete in this new format and in many cases have seen one format cannibalise the other (Chen and Leteney, 2000; Enders and Jalessi, 2000). Although there are obvious differences between the Internet and traditional bricks and mortar retail formats, there are likely to be some retail theories that hold true for both formats. This thesis provides a starting point in determining how existing retail knowledge can be adapted to the Internet by comparing aspects of customer behaviour on and off-line. The advent of the World Wide Web (WWW) signified global opportunities for members and stakeholders of the wine industry. Wine retailers have been quick to trial the on-line format and their trials have been met with varying degrees of success. Wine producers have also seized opportunities to promote and sell their products via the Internet. In recent years tax incentives have been introduced to encourage wine producers to sell directly to the consumer, with most wine producers being located in rural areas the Internet offers an opportunity to bring customers closer to wine products. This thesis utilises data collected through a customer database and via surveys customer behaviour has been compared. The findings of this research show that not only do a unique group of customers use the Internet for their wine purchases, but also that these customers modify their behaviour to maximise the benefit they gain from their on-line transactions. Results show that, contrary to popular belief, customers are not using the Internet to purchase the same products (as they would purchase in-store) at a lower price. A comparison of the same of the same customers purchases on-line and in-store showed customers spent more per item on-line and purchased a greater number of items per transaction on-line compared to in-store. Furthermore, a comparison of these customers' in-store transactions with customers who only purchased in-store, showed that on-line customers spent more per item and purchased in greater quantities than other customers irrespective of format. Individual characteristics identified in this research allow the targeting of customers more likely to adopt the internet as a retail format. By focusing efforts on these individuals marketers can realize optimal results from their efforts. For academic research, the established differences in retail behaviour point to areas where existing retail can be expanded to the Internet and highlight areas for future research. / Thesis (MBusiness-Research)--University of South Australia, 2004
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/284326 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Stening, Sally |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | copyright under review |
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