E-commerce opportunities and challenges for franchise chains

Rozenn Perrigot (1) , Guy Basset (1) , Gérard Cliquet (1)

1 CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management

The continued creation of websites in the franchise sector is inevitable, no matter whether they are informational or transactional websites. However, with the presence of these websites, there may be a risk that activities in the franchisees’ stores will decrease. Franchisors need to be attentive to the survival of their chains, to the consistency and uniformity of their chains and to potential conflicts with their franchisees or among their franchisees. This chapter deals with the development of websites within franchise chains in Europe. After briefly defining the legal regulations set by the European Union, the chapter considers the use of the Internet as a new marketing channel by studying the reasons why franchise chains need to be present on the Internet and under what conditions. Then the chapter discusses potential issues related to transactional websites opened by franchisors, e.g., encroachment problems and transactional websites opened by franchisees. It examines some solutions adopted by various French franchise chains.

Mots clés: E-commerce; franchise chains

Domaines: Gestion et management

Rozenn Perrigot, Guy Basset, Gérard Cliquet. E-commerce opportunities and challenges for franchise chains. Frank Hoy, Rozenn Perrigot, Andrew Terry. Handbook of Research on Franchising. Research Handbooks in Business and Management series , Edward Elgar, pp.273-292, 2017, 9781785364174. ⟨10.4337/9781785364181.00025⟩. ⟨halshs-01683581⟩