A review on a post on e-tailing from My E-Commerce Blog

Review on 1st Dell physical store in Malaysia!

There are two distinct categories of e-tailers are pure plays and bricks and clicks. A pure play e-tailer uses the Internet as its primary means of retailing. Examples of pure play e-tailers are Dell and Amazon.com. A brick and click e-tailer uses the Internet to push its good or service but also has the traditional physical storefront available to customers.

U.S. computer maker Dell Inc. on 23rd, Jan 2007 opened its first global business centre outside the United States to provide 24-hour engineering and technology support to its branches worldwide. Chief Executive Officer Kevin Rollins opened the 200,000 square foot (18,580 sq. metre) centre in Malaysia's high-tech city of Cyberjaya. Dell says the centre will employ 600 people by year-end and 1,000 within five years. more

DELL office in Cyberjaya

Dell is famous for selling it PC and laptop directly to their customers through the direct sales online which proved to be a very successful business model. However, Dell is slowly shifting away from this successful model when the growth of PC sales slowed. As Dell continue to strengthen their brick-and-mortar presence worldwide with especially in US and Europe, the computer vendor opened its first retail store in Malaysia at the Mid Valley Megamall's IT World section on 22nd Dec 2007.

Dell Direct Store
2nd Floor, IT World, Lot 15
Mid Valley Mega MallKuala Lumpur





It used to be that you could only go online to browse Dell products and the only way to order one was through the Internet or over the phone. That's changed. Dell has just arranged to have its products on display in 10,000-odd stores worldwide; some are Dell branded stores while others are joint ventures. The Malaysian store is a partnership with TecAsia, the retail arm of FTEC Resources Bhd, which also distributes its own range of notebook PCs.

Dell said the move was brought on by its aim to regain its lead position as the No 1 computer maker in the world from archrival the Hewlett-Packard Co. HP took the lead about a year ago. Dell has operated a manufacturing operation in the northern city of Penang since 1995, producing notebooks, desktop computers, servers and storage systems.

In 2005, Dell products accounted for 28 percent of Malaysia’s electronics equipment exports and currently employs more than 5,000 people in the country. Dell is vying with Hewlett-Packard Co. for dominance in the global personal computer market. For all of 2006, the two companies each registered about 16 or 17 percent market share, according to tallies by IDC and Gartner Inc. But in the fourth quarter, HP had a 17 to 18 percent of the worldwide market compared to Dell's 14 to 15 percent. more

E-tailers who take part in pure play–type business have the opportunity to turn higher profit margins, due in part to the fact that many of the overhead expenses associated with a physical retail space, such as labour, retail space, and inventory, can be significantly alleviated. Pure play allows for a retailer to be able to reach customers world wide, whilst still only maintaining one location for each and every customer to visit, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Many studies have shown that e-tailers are failing to meet the needs of online customers and that they generally only have one chance to make a good impression if they want their customers to return. It is said that the three most important things that e-tailers today must work on to ensure profitability are "search, support and promotion."