An empirical study of B2B migration from traditional stores to the Internet

While online B2B purchasing is growing rapidly, little is known about why some firms continue to make most of their purchases in a traditional store while others have migrated most of their purchases to the Internet. In this study, we focus on the printing/imaging category and assess four major retailing constructs: Convenience, Purchase Assistance, Pricing and Order Completion. We find that respondents rate their online experiences superior to their in-store (bricks-and-mortar) experiences in the areas of convenience, purchase assistance and pricing. In contrast, in-store (bricks-and-mortar) experiences beat online experiences with regards to order completion. Segmenting the respondents by the percentage of spending made in-store (bricks-and-mortar) versus online, we find there are significant differences in the perceived relative advantages of these two purchasing options.