Internet for Franchising: Current Use and Areas of Improvement—Results of an Empirical Research

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Internet provides numerous business opportunities to brands approaching the market with vertical marketing systems. In franchising networks, the Internet offers the affiliating enterprise (franchisor) the possibility to approach the end user and the “community” of franchisees by providing services to both—information, relationships, and the possibility of online purchasing to the former, and information, training, sales, and procurement support to the latter. This article explores the impact of the Internet on franchising with the objective of discovering how franchisors use their Web sites. Results are presented from a preliminary study on a multisector and multinational sample of 305 franchisor Web sites, illustrating the content and features available online. 1 1The results of the study were presented at the 2007 World Marketing Congress of the Academy of Marketing Science, Verona, Italy. A further aim of the study is to evaluate the customer orientation adopted by franchisors in their Web sites and to compare online behaviors with other economic sectors analyzed, using the same methodology. The results of the study should help to significantly inform debate on this subject and serve as a starting point for future research on the impact of the internet on franchising growth strategies.