E-tailing in Ireland: A review of Ireland's top 25 retailers

Abstract

Electronic commerce provides a new sales channel for traditional retailers (Gulati and Garino, 2000, Griffith and Krampf, 1998). Yet, many traditional retailers have been slow to embrace the new technology (Bellman, 2001, De-Kare Silver, 2000, Maruca, 1999). However, others Clicks & Bricks retailers have successfully integrated physical operations with online stores (Enders and Jelassi, 2000, Willcocks and Plant, 2001). This paper assesses the current state of cyber retailing in Ireland and seeks to evaluate the impact electronic commerce has had on the retail sector. The top 25 Irish retail firms were identified and the web site (if existing) of these companies were then accessed and evaluated based on factors relating to web site functionality, technical sophistication and information provision. The research found the cyber retailing market in Ireland to be buoyant and growing. The high incidence of web presence amongst the top twenty-five retailers illustrates that Irish retailers are pursuing cyber strategies. Furthermore, a high proportion of these retailers are actively pursuing cyber-retailing. However, a majority of these web adopters do not support online sales and it is evident that within a large section of the Irish retail sector the Internet is still being thought of as a medium primarily for information dissemination to support the existing business. Furthermore, the low instance of customisation features provides evidence to suggest that web sites are being implemented in a sub-optimal manner.