Adapting the Internet as Distribution Channel for Stationary Retailers: The Austrian Case

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) seems to be a powerful tool for retailers. In our paper we show, how leading Austrian retailers reply to the ‘electronic revolution’ by analysing their electronic channels (webpages). We refer in our paper to the e-commerce, to end-users and to the ecommerce efforts of stationary retailing companies. In a first step we have integrated e-commerce to the institutional typology of retailing and present results of current studies to highlight the importance of e-commerce. Our empirical study shows that the majority of retailers had already implemented web-based offers but we could not identify an Austrian