Canadian Tire Case

Part 1

From the case we can know the multi-channel retailing strategy of Canadian Tire’s aim is to provide customers an easy way to search and purchase the products they want. And the Internet is very useful for doing business. And the companies who didn’t know how to use the Internet to sell their products will lose the competition with their competitors. So how to sell the product in multi-channel and gain more market share is an important goal of Canadian Tire. But there’s no need for Canadian Tire to create their own search system to support their business because it may cost too much. The purpose of Canadian Tire Retailing Online (CTROL) must be earning money. It is hard to say that it is negative cannibalization or positive increased shopping effects before Canadian Tire Corporation was going to invest CTROL. The Canadian Tire has their advantages that “nine out of 10 Canadians already lived within a 15 minutes drive of a CTR store.”(From Canadian Tire Multiple Channel Retailing, 2002, Ivey Management Service) It is easy for a customer to reach their retail store. So the customers’ interest in CTROL won’t be too much. And as the article said “a customer could not order an item online and pick it up at the local CTC store.” (From Canadian Tire Multiple Channel Retailing, 2002, Ivey Management Service) Online shopping brings more convenience for customers. And the customers will not pay for the delivery fees if they already know they can get what they want from a 15 minute drive to a retail store. Online shopping is only about 8% of the purchase activities. So it is not everybody know how to shop online especially for the aged people CTROL won’t work at all. So in some area, the CTROL has the positive effects but in some other area the CTROL has negative cannibalization effect.

Part 2

Obviously, CTROL was very important to Canadian Tire because “A content-based Web site was designed by CTROL and was launched in 1997.” (From Canadian Tire Multiple Channel Retailing, 2002, Ivey Management Service) and “The new site went online in November 2000, offering CTR customers a new way to shop. Initially, the site had 5500 stock-keeping units. Within two weeks, the site was ranked as one of the top five e-commerce sites in Canada by Nielsen/Net rating” (From Canadian Tire Multiple Channel Retailing, 2002, Ivey Management Service). They proved that CTROL is very important for the CTC and also the CTROL may bring the Canadian Tire a good future. And the CTROL will expand the market share and sells of Canadian Tire. “More than one million Canadian homes were expected to have high-speed Internet connections by the end of 2000.” (From Canadian Tire Multiple Channel Retailing, 2002, Ivey Management Service). This also proves CTROL may bring Canadian Tire a good opportunity. At that time the online shopping is a blank of this market. So the first