ABSTRACT
In the e-retail literature, much is made of the similarities between the new electronic ways (‘clicks’) to sell goods to consumers and the traditional ways (‘bricks’). One can talk about e-stores, e-shop fronts, e-shoppers, e-malls and so on. In this chapter, we highlight some of the dierences between ‘clicks’ and ‘bricks’. These dierences arise from the totally dierent technologies which are used in a clicks store compared with a bricks store, and the totally dierent approach used by e-shoppers to nd goods and services, compare prices and generally browse around. The essential concept is search, the process by which e-shoppers nd information about products and services.
