Bricks and Clicks.The right balance between virtual and physical stores:Using the Examples of Zara and Dell

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,3, Shanghai University (International Management), course: E-Commerce, language: English, abstract: As the importance of E-Commerce is constantly growing, traditional brick-and mortar companies have to consider building up an additional sales channel - the Internet. In order to be successful, companies have to find an appropriate proportion between full integration and separation of virtual and physical store. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the article "Get the Right Mix of Bricks & Clicks" by Ranjay Gulati and Jason Garino, which was published in the Harvard Business Review of June 2000.To understand the concept better, the author is applying the arguments to two E-business firms: "Zara", a clothing retailer and "Dell", a computer manufacturer.