Many traditional brick-and-mortar businesses supplement their physical out-lets with e-commerce capabilities on the Web, but there has been lit tle empirical research on the underlying dynamics of the “click-and-mortar ” business approach. This paper de-velops a conceptual framework that highlights the four types of synergies obtained by integrating e-commerce with physical infrastructures: cost savings, improved differentia-tion, enhanced trust, and market extension. Case studies of click-and-mortar enterprises provide concrete examples of these synergy benefits and of the managerial actions needed to prevent channel conflicts. KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: Case studies, channel conflict, competitive strategy, e-commerce business models, electronic retailing. After a slow start in Web-based retailing, many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers now have electronic commerce channels in place. Researchers on e-commerce, using terms like “click and mortar ” and “cyber-enhanced retail-ing, ” consider the integration of physical and Web channels to be a distinct business model [16, 23, 28].
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Steinfield et al. (2002) studied this question.