The internet has made e-commerce, relatively new but growing rapidly, a new avenue of sales potential. Every internet user is a potential customer (Holden, Belew, Elad, Rich, & Gulbrandsen, 2008).
Like other major retailers, Sears has both physical and e-commerce storefronts. Starting out in the 1880’s as a mail order catalog company, it expanded to retail stores in 1925, and moved into department store formats as early as 1934 ("A Narrative History," n.d.) As in-store sale slow, it is aggressively pursuing customers through its online store.
Appliances are a major component of Sears’s inventory, even in e-commerce. Items, like microwaves, are available in a variety of brands, styles, colors, and prices. The shopper decided to shop for an …show more content…
A survey conducted by Lab42 (as cited in Roesler, 2014) concluded that free shipping was an important factor for 96% of those polled. Although free shipping can be more expensive for companies to offer when items are heavy, like with 50 plus pound microwaves, the cost is significantly less when the item can go on a truck of other stock already bound for the customer’s preferred store site. Even more important, that customer pickup traffic gets them into the physical store to, hopefully, make additional purchases (Tuttle, 2011).
Customers are also offered several protection package options for their purchase. If the customer does not select one, the Sears site offers it again on the shipping option page. This tenacity for repeating profitable but non-essential options is typical behavior, whether a customer is shopping for a flight or an appliance. Online storefronts have an advantage over in-store sales. In-store, the cashier only asks once about optional warranties but web storefronts can keep the option popping up until the purchase is …show more content…
A check with weebcookies.org found a total of 8 third–party domains, 14 persistent cookies, and 21 session cookies during a shopping/browsing session (Cookie and Security Scan Report, 2016). Session cookies will clear when the browser is closed but third-party and persistent cookies can present a concern for customers who may not realize their activities can be tracked over multiple sites and for extended time periods. This degree of monitoring is simply not available to sellers when customers shop at physical
Like other major retailers, Sears has both physical and e-commerce storefronts. Starting out in the 1880’s as a mail order catalog company, it expanded to retail stores in 1925, and moved into department store formats as early as 1934 ("A Narrative History," n.d.) As in-store sale slow, it is aggressively pursuing customers through its online store.
Appliances are a major component of Sears’s inventory, even in e-commerce. Items, like microwaves, are available in a variety of brands, styles, colors, and prices. The shopper decided to shop for an …show more content…
A survey conducted by Lab42 (as cited in Roesler, 2014) concluded that free shipping was an important factor for 96% of those polled. Although free shipping can be more expensive for companies to offer when items are heavy, like with 50 plus pound microwaves, the cost is significantly less when the item can go on a truck of other stock already bound for the customer’s preferred store site. Even more important, that customer pickup traffic gets them into the physical store to, hopefully, make additional purchases (Tuttle, 2011).
Customers are also offered several protection package options for their purchase. If the customer does not select one, the Sears site offers it again on the shipping option page. This tenacity for repeating profitable but non-essential options is typical behavior, whether a customer is shopping for a flight or an appliance. Online storefronts have an advantage over in-store sales. In-store, the cashier only asks once about optional warranties but web storefronts can keep the option popping up until the purchase is …show more content…
A check with weebcookies.org found a total of 8 third–party domains, 14 persistent cookies, and 21 session cookies during a shopping/browsing session (Cookie and Security Scan Report, 2016). Session cookies will clear when the browser is closed but third-party and persistent cookies can present a concern for customers who may not realize their activities can be tracked over multiple sites and for extended time periods. This degree of monitoring is simply not available to sellers when customers shop at physical