(R)evolution of the e-grocery industry: Strategic implications

• Autor(a) principal: Ferreira, Mário Pedro
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/5299
• topic: E-grocery; Contingency; Mismatch,; Revolution; Evolution; Business models

The use of the Internet in grocery retailing created the need for new business models, but it did not bring radical changes to consumer behaviour. Nevertheless, in the early days of egrocery, most managers overestimated the power of technology and adopted revolutionary solutions. Today, after 15 years, that approach proved to be misleading, as online grocery firms are supplying small market niches with the use of traditional infrastructures and knowledge. Historical evidence from the UK and the US suggests that in an environment of high uncertainty and complexity determined by product nature, consumer switching costs, entry barriers, market mismatch and low profit margins, contingent evolutionary approaches are more appropriate