Ikea Case Study Ebusiness

This paper aims to demonstrate a detailed description of the elements of ‘IKEA’ company based on its famous name in the furniture industry.

”The IKEA Concept starts with the idea of providing a range of home furnishing products that are affordable to the many people, not just the few.” *http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/this-is-ikea/the-ikea-concept/index.html

Online commerce was introduced to consumers in the mid-1990’s, and in the years since, it has grown exponentially. It started out virtually nonexistent and has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Nearly every retail sector has entered online commerce; clothing, electronics, home, health and grooming items, even food and groceries are starting to gain traction online. Online commerce sites rival traditional brick and mortar stores such as Walmart and Target, as well as other big-box stores. As online retailers such as Amazon continue to expand, many brick and mortar stores have been making their way online, indicative of an increasing movement towards online commerce. With more than 80% of the online population having made an online

Brick- and- click is when company operates both on an online store as well on an offline store and integrates the two into a single retail strategy. One of Sears’s bright spots is online sales. The “brick” side of Sears’s revenue dropped, while Sears “click” side increase leading them to be sixth largest retailer in the United States. As Sears managed to do well online Sears’s stores are enhancing shopper option, offering customer a Shop Your Way loyalty program, which can lead to increased

Many people are moving from physical stores to purchasing merchandise and services on the Internet. Today,

Many Retail chain stores are struggling to get customers to walk in and shop in their stores as much as they did before. People seem to enjoy shopping online (for commodity, convenience, and other valid reasons), and this has affected many conventionally-operating retail chains.

For retailers, being online is efficient and improves customer relationships, but it does not replace a retailer's ability to "up-sell" and ultimately it struggles to match the brand appeal created by a physical presence in a strong shopping centre.

Department stores Targets, Kohls, and Kmart provides the consumer with a large selection of merchandise for all ages and genders these stores use a multichannel strategy which describes how these corporations incorporate their business’s offline and online channels, this technique is also known as brick and mortar (Brown, DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin, & Perkins, 2012). The marketing scheme is to let the customer decide how they want to make a purchase a product through the store, the website which provides more information about the products, a call can be placed to a customer service representative or forms that are included in catalogs can be filled out and mailed into the store. Online shopping allows for comparison shopping to see which store

The Internet has changed the way we do virtually everything, including the way we shop. However, shopping is not the only thing that has changed. In the last decade we have changed the way, we apply for loans, study, and even plan a vacation. Doing any of these things would have been impossible a few decades ago. At present, online banking, paying bills, ordering new services, and shopping online have become part of our daily lives. Traditional brick-and-mortar stores have been around much longer than online stores, but we cannot deny that online shopping is giving the traditional stores competition. Many consumers still choose to shop at regular brick-and-mortar stores because they like to see and

IKEA is a multinational group founded by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943. A production oriented firm in the retail industry, IKEA designs and sells a range of functional and durable, self-assembled ‘flat-pack’ furniture, appliances and home décor at low prices (Rodionova, Z. 2017). IKEA originated in Sweden and has 370 stores in 47 countries, mainly in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia (IKEA 2014).

Brick-and-mortar stores are losing their touch in the retail world. Not only has there been a huge surge in online-only stores in the last decade, but traditional retailers have had to up their online game.

In last ten years, internet users have increased from 10 million to over 600 million worldwide. [NUA, web survey] This rapid increase has brought a paradigm shift in the business strategies and introduced new marketing concepts. According to figures released by US department of Commerce, online retail sales in US alone had crossed over $ 50 billion in the year 2002. [E-Commerce Times, February 26, 2003] Analysis of the sharp rising graph of sales over internet, predicts direct channel to be the most utilized channel of the future. A lot has been written on the subject of e-commerce and its importance in today's expanding world of technology. A critical appraisal of online selling / direct channel highlights the following aspects:

Brick and mortar business still exist due to they have been around since society’s inception and they further have many advantages against online stores as well as some disadvantages. Likewise, brick and mortar still exist because they are essentially the only types of business that exist within small towns and the types of retailers that consumers are accustomed to. Many small towns do not venture into online stores because they are familiar and loyal to the town 's brick and mortar retail stores in which they purchase from. They trust these stores and the owners and rely on them for purchases. Furthermore, brick and mortar need to continually find innovative ways in which to continue to attract its customers in a time of many new technological advances and people are becoming more aware of ways in which to purchase items without having to leave the comforts of their own home. Therefore, now more brick and mortar businesses are starting to suffer due to the advances of people looking for cheaper prices instead

Business like Amazon wants to make buying item from their business easier for customers. This is why Amazon offers E-retailing which gives customer option to go shopping online. The internet has had impact change on consumers shopping habit as shopping online has numerous advantages which is why online shopping continues to gain popularity. Some of the advantages of E-retailing is that it’s convenient as consumers are able to go shopping at home which could help them save cost on travelling and also gives consumers an option to compare prices of different products as there are wide range of products being sold online.

Furthermore, they offer to the customer the experience to buy in a physical store, compared with Amazon that is one of the strongest competitor, there’s no doubt that the internet, and the mobile web in particular, have changed the way people shop, but there is strong evidence that consumers continue to value the experience of