Bricks and clicks

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A Safeway delivery truck illustrates how some traditional supermarkets are now pursuing a bricks and
clicks strategy.
Bricks and clicks (aka clicks and bricks, click and mortar, bricks, clicks and flips, or WAMBAM
[1]
)
is a business model by which a company integrates both offline (bricks) and online (clicks) presences,
sometimes with the third extra flips (physical catalogs). Additionally, many will also offer telephone
ordering as well, or at least provide telephone sales support.
A popular example of the bricks and clicks model is when a chain of stores allows the customer to order
products either online or physically in one of their stores, also allowing them to either pick-up their order
directly at a local branch of the store or get it delivered to their home. There are many alternative
combinations of this model.
The bricks and clicks model has typically been used by traditional retailers who have extensive logistics
and supply chains, but are well known and often respected for their traditional physical presence. Part of
the reason for its success is that it is far easier for a traditional retailer to establish an online presence
than it is for a start-up company to employ a successful purely online one, or for an online only retailer to
establish a traditional presence, including a strong and well recognised brand, without having a large
marketing budget.
[citation needed]
Although the major factor in the success or failure of this business model
is in the control of costs, as usually maintaining a physical presence paying for many physical store
premises and their staffing requires larger capital expenditure which online only businesses do not
usually have. Some business sectors may lend themselves better to a bricks and clicks model than
others. For example, supermarkets often have different customers types requiring alternative shopping
options; one group may wish to see the goods directly before purchase and like the convenience of
quickly shopping on-the-fly, while another group may require a different convenience of shopping online
and getting the order delivered when it suits them. Conversely, a business selling more luxurious, often
expensive, or only occasionally purchased products like cars may find sales are more common with
a physical presence, due to the more considered nature of the purchasing decision, though they may
still offer online product information.
The success of the model in many sectors has lessened the credibility of some analysts who argued
that the Internet would render traditional retailers obsolete throughdisintermediation.
[citation needed]

"On the other hand, an online-only service can remain a best-in-class operation because its executives
focus on just the online business." It has been argued that a bricks and clicks business model is more
difficult to implement than an online only model.
[2]
In the future, the bricks and clicks model may be more
successful, but in 2010 some online only businesses grew at a staggering 30%, while some bricks and
clicks businesses grew at a paltry 3%.
[3]
The key factor for a bricks and clicks business model to be
successful "will, to a large extent, be determined by a companys ability to manage the trade-offs
between separation and integration" of their retail and online businesses.