IN DEGREE PROJECT INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT,SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS

, STOCKHOLM SWEDEN 2019

Creating Value and Identifying Opportunities for Innovation in E-commerce on the B2B Market

- A case study of the distribution and construction industries in Sweden

MATILDA NORDQUIST

OLIVIA NORLIN

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYSCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT

Creating Value and Identifying Opportunities for

Innovation in E-commerce on the B2B Market - A case study of the distribution and construction industries in Sweden

Matilda Nordquist

Olivia Norlin

Master of Science Thesis TRITA-ITM-EX 2019:503

KTH Industrial Engineering and Management

Machine Design

SE-100 44 STOCKHOLM

Examensarbete TRITA-ITM-EX 2019:503

Att skapa värde och identifiera möjligheter för innovation inom e-

handel på B2B-marknaden

- En fallstudie av distributions- och byggindustrierna i Sverige

Matilda Nordquist

Olivia Norlin

Godkänt

2019-06-26

Examinator

Sofia Ritzén

Handledare

Susanne Nilsson

Uppdragsgivare

Konfidentiellt

Kontaktperson

Konfidentiellt

Sammanfattning Syfte - Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vilka effekter e-handel har på B2B marknaden.

Fokus har legat på hur kundvärden och de första delarna av innovationsprocessen påverkas

utifrån ett distributionsföretags och byggbranschens synvinkel.

Metod - Resultatet av detta examensarbete bygger på kvalitativa intervjuer med

kompletterande kvantitativa frågor, och kombinerar både en intern och extern syn av ett

fallföretag inom distributionsindustrin samt ett urval av dess kunder. Fyra interna intervjuer

genomfördes med fallföretagets anställda med höga positioner inom olika kompetensområden,

följt av tre kundintervjuer. Genom att tematiskt koda intervjuerna kunde data analyseras och

ge svar på forskningsfrågorna.

Resultat och slutsatser - Studien fokuserar på följande områden inom kundvärden: service,

personal samt tid och energi. Forskningen visade att service blev viktigare eftersom en bra

leverans är en viktig del av att handla online. Vidare visade det sig att personalen blev mindre

värdefull i den digitala handeln, eftersom kunderna accepterar att handel online är mer

oberoende. Det visade sig att värdet av en låg kostnad för tid och energi var hög oavsett

säljkanal. Slutligen så var bristen på kommunikation mellan säljare och kunder ett hinder för

att kunna ta tillvara på kundernas input i innovationsprocessen. Därför behöver kundernas input

samlas in på andra sätt än genom den fysiska interaktionen med säljare, exempelvis genom

kundpaneler eller den stora mängden CX-data (Customer experience data) som kan fås online.

Forskningsbidrag - Forskningsbidraget som kan härledas från detta examensarbete innefattar

en undersökning av hur kundvärden påverkas av e-handel utifrån ett B2B-perspektiv. Utöver

detta har insamlingen av innovativa idéer från kunder över internet granskats och analyserats.

Detta examensarbete har gett klarhet i dessa frågor ur en distributions- och byggbranschs

synvinkel och trots att byggbranschen har legat efter i digitaliseringen så ser vi en trend i att

denna bransch blir mer digitaliserad, vilket innebär att distributionsbolagen behöver hitta andra

sätt att möta de nya krav som ställs från byggföretag av alla storlekar.

Master of Science Thesis TRITA-ITM-EX 2019:503

Creating Value and Identifying Opportunities for Innovation in E-

commerce on the B2B Market

- A case study of the distribution and construction industries in Sweden

Matilda Nordquist

Olivia Norlin

Approved

2019-06-26

Examiner

Sofia Ritzén

Supervisor

Susanne Nilsson

Commissioner

Confidential

Contact person

Confidential

Abstract Purpose - The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of e-commerce in the B2B

market. Focus has been on how customer values and the front end of innovation are affected

from a distribution company’s and construction industry’s point of view.

Method - The results of this research paper are based on qualitative interviews with

supplementary quantitative questions, combining an internal and external view of a case

company within the distribution industry and a selection of its customers. Four internal

interviews were conducted with the case company’s employees of high positions in different

areas of expertise, followed up by three interviews with customers. By a thematic coding of the

interviews, the data could be analyzed and provide answers to the research questions.

Results and conclusions - The study focuses on the following areas within customer value:

service, personnel, and time and energy. The research showed that service becomes more

important as a good delivery is such an important part of buying online. Moreover, personnel

were found to be less valuable in the digital store as the customers are okay with the

independency online. The value of low time and energy cost was found to be high no matter

the sales channel. Finally, the lack of communication between salespeople and customers was

found to disrupt the possibility to use customers’ input in the front end of innovation. Therefore,

input from the customers need to be collected through other means than the physical interaction

with salespeople in the purchase process, such as through customer panels or by using the big

amount of CX data (customer experience data) that can be collected online.

Research contribution - The contribution to literature that can be derived from this master

thesis includes examining how customer values are affected by e-commerce from a B2B

perspective. In addition to this, the use of collecting innovative ideas from customers over the

Internet have been examined and analyzed. This thesis has brought clarity to these aspects from

a distribution and construction industry point of view and even though the construction industry

has been behind on the aspect of digitalization, we can see a trend of this industry becoming

more digitized, meaning that the distribution companies need to find other ways to meet new

demands from construction companies of all sizes.

Foreword This master’s thesis is the final project in the master of Integrated Product Design in the track

Innovation Management and Product Development at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The

report is a result of many hours of research and hard work and compiles our five years at KTH.

We would like to thank all the people who have helped us on the way and made this thesis

possible. First, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to our supervisor at the case

company that we got the opportunity to work with and who has given us all necessary

information and guided us to different people within and outside of the company. Moreover,

we would like to thank our supervisor at KTH who has been a great support throughout the

process and given valuable feedback, from the start until the final report, which has helped us

constantly improve our research and keep our spirits up.

Matilda Nordquist andOlivia Norlin

Stockholm, June 2019

Nomenclature

List of abbreviations Abbreviation Explanation

B2B Business-to-business

B2C Business-to-consumer

CMO Chief marketing officer

CX Customer experience

E-commerce Electronic commerce

FEI Front End of Innovation

HCD Head of construction division

HEC Head of e-commerce

HI Head of innovation

R&D Research and development

SME Small and medium sized enterprises

Table of contents

1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Background ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Problem statement ......................................................................................................................................................................... 3

1.3 Disposition ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 4

2 Literature review ............................................................................................................................................................. 5

2.1 Business relationships ................................................................................................................................................................... 5

2.2 Digitalization .................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 2.2.1 Electronic commerce .......................................................................................................................................................... 6 2.2.2 The transformation from analogue to digital ......................................................................................................... 7

2.3 Customer value ................................................................................................................................................................................ 8 2.3.1 Services benefit ..................................................................................................................................................................... 9 2.3.2 Personnel benefit ...............................................................................................................................................................11 2.3.3 Time and energy costs .....................................................................................................................................................13 2.3.4 Digitalization’s impact on customer value .............................................................................................................14

2.4 The innovation process ............................................................................................................................................................... 14 2.4.1 Opportunity identification .............................................................................................................................................16

3 Purpose and research questions ............................................................................................................................. 17

4 Method ............................................................................................................................................................................... 18

4.1 Research approach ....................................................................................................................................................................... 18

4.2 Selection of literature .................................................................................................................................................................. 19

4.3 Data collection ............................................................................................................................................................................... 19 4.3.1 Interviews ..............................................................................................................................................................................19 4.3.2 Conducting the interviews .............................................................................................................................................20 4.3.3 Internal interviews ............................................................................................................................................................21 4.3.4 External interviews ...........................................................................................................................................................21

4.4 Data analysis................................................................................................................................................................................... 22 4.4.1 Coding ......................................................................................................................................................................................23

4.5 Case company ................................................................................................................................................................................. 26

4.6 Reliability and validity ................................................................................................................................................................ 26

4.7 Ethics .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 27

5 Results ................................................................................................................................................................................ 28

5.1 The entrance of e-commerce .................................................................................................................................................... 28 5.1.1 Choosing e-commerce as a sales channel ...............................................................................................................28 5.1.2 Experienced challenges with e-commerce .............................................................................................................29 5.1.3 Digital maturity ...................................................................................................................................................................30

5.2 Important customer values and how they are met ........................................................................................................ 31 5.2.1 Important customer values in service......................................................................................................................31 5.2.2 Personal relations in the physical store and online...........................................................................................32

5.2.3 What is time and energy consuming and how is this addressed ................................................................33 5.2.4 The changed expectations ..............................................................................................................................................35

5.3 Dealing with customer feedback in the innovation process ....................................................................................... 35 5.3.1 Giving and receiving feedback .....................................................................................................................................35 5.3.2 Processing the feedback ..................................................................................................................................................36

6 Discussion and analysis ............................................................................................................................................... 37

6.1 How the value of service is affected by e-commerce ...................................................................................................... 37

6.2 How the value of personnel is affected by e-commerce ................................................................................................ 38

6.3 How the value of time and energy is affected by e-commerce................................................................................... 39

6.4 How e-commerce affects the front end of innovation ................................................................................................... 40

7 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................................................... 42

7.1 Overall conclusions....................................................................................................................................................................... 42

7.2 Theoretical contribution ............................................................................................................................................................ 42

7.3 Limitations and future research ............................................................................................................................................. 43

8 References ........................................................................................................................................................................ 45

Appendix A - Interview guide case company internal ............................................................................................i

Appendix B - Interview guide customers .................................................................................................................... v

1

1 Introduction

The following chapter starts with a background description which leads into the subject and

the problematization of creating customer value digitally in a business-to-business market.

This is followed by disposition which describes the order and content of the different chapters.

1.1 Background

We are currently living in the beginning of the 21st century, also known as the Information

Age. This implies that digitalization has become a great part of our everyday life since the

phenomenon of the Internet began in the 1990s (Vogelsang, 2010) and is rapidly becoming

more important in both societal and industrial contexts (Downes and Mui, 1998). Technical

developments, as well as globalization, has contributed to an openness for citizens to explore

and take part in addressing societal challenges (Larsson, 2016). This provides both

opportunities and challenges for the society when the power of digitalization and digital

transformation grows. Markets and social structures of today will be impacted in a highly

disruptive manner, which as a result will have a great impact on the current value chains and

business models in different industries (Albach, Meffert, Pinkwart and Reichwald, 2015).

The transformation from an analogue to a digitalized society has led to the need for companies

in all industries to change both the way they sell their products and how they communicate

with their customers (Kannan, 2017). While the technology has improved. the access to the

Internet has grown rapidly and has thus become a big part of the everyday life for most people

in Sweden, and all over the world. This has led to a large electronic marketplace that can be

easily connected from various devices with improved applications, which makes it possible to

share information more easily (HUI Research, 2011). More companies have integrated e-

commerce into their business strategy to be at the same place as their potential customers. This

has changed the market dramatically and the customers can now choose what kind of

information they want, when they want it and how to get it, which has made them better

informed and in more control than ever (Ryan, 2009).

Many can agree about the benefits with e-commerce, such as the opening hours, the

accessibility for the customers, the increased range for the sellers and the pure convenience

perks such as saving time and energy (Turban, King, Lee and Viehland, 2002; HUI Research,

2011, Chaffey, 2004; KPMG, 2017). However, how to use e-commerce as a part of the business

can differ as it sometimes is a substitute for physical stores, but it is also common to use digital

stores as a complementary to physical stores and let the customer either solely find information

or to make some of the purchases from (Chassey and Smith, 2017; Bergström, 2010; HUI

Research, 2011).

Earlier research on the transformation from analogue to digitalized has mainly been focused

on the business-to-consumer (B2C) markets and end-users, while less focus has been towards

the impact on the relationship between buyers and sellers in business-to-business (B2B)

2

markets (Obal and Lancioni, 2013; Reid and Plank, 2000). Even though more focus has been

on B2C companies in earlier research purposes, the digital transformation has reached the B2B

market as well. In 2017, nearly two out of three B2B companies in Sweden were selling their

products and services digitally (Litium, 2017). One year later, a third of the companies that

were not selling digitally, were planning to do so within three years. Furthermore, the

companies within wholesale and distribution are ahead of other B2B companies, such as

manufacturing companies, when it comes to e-commerce (Litium, 2018). Another study

showed that seven out of ten companies are buying products and services online (Collector

Bank, 2019). Companies now have access to a wide range of digital systems to help them

manage interactions with their different customers, so the relationships in B2B markets are

transforming in a rapid pace (Richard and Devinney, 2005). This will change how companies

and their customers interact with each other and companies that do not change their sales

channels risk to fall behind the competition (Svea Ekonomi, 2018).

One industry that is behind many other industries when it comes to digitalization and e-

commerce is the construction industry, one of the largest and most important industries of today

(Gerbert, Rothballer and Renz, 2016). Most buyers in this industry are skeptical towards digital

sales and are still doing their purchases in physical stores as many thinks that the offer online

is limited and that the online stores are impersonal (Collector Bank, 2019; Svea Ekonomi,

2018). However, the digital transformation in this industry has begun and more construction

companies are using digital tools in their everyday work. It is likely that for example real-time

mobile collaborations and advanced project planning tools will be integrated in the construction

industry and it will then have a great impact on how the work is done (Gerbert et al., 2016). A

survey by Welsh, Davis and Dalton (2018) that was conducted on construction companies from

all over the world demonstrated that, between 2016 and 2017, there was an increase in

personnel of all ages that felt comfortable or very comfortable in trying new technology.

Moreover, according to the study by Svea Ekonomi (2018), half of the companies in the

construction industry participating in the study thought that the sales through digital channels

will increase in the near future. This view is shared by the buyers where one third think that it

will increase (Collector Bank, 2019). Thereby, it is becoming more important to transform both

people and business models as well as adopting new technologies, materials and tools.

The use of Internet as a platform amongst companies has led to an increased globalization and

an increased competition (Salo, 2006). Because of this, companies do not longer solely focus

on the internal processes to gain competitive advantage, but instead more focus has turned to

the market and the customers to find what they value (Woodruff, 1997). Customer value has

thus become a main factor in marketing strategy and a core in the purpose of business

(Anderson, Jain and Chintagunta, 1992; Grant, 2010). Despite the high interest in customer

value, the definition is often vague (Woodruff, 1997). A common trait though is that value is

the trade-off between the customer's perceived benefits and the sacrifices in a seller's offering

(Anderson and Narus, 1998; Zeithaml, 1988). Companies need to create value for the customers

so that this customer value can be turned into value for the firm in terms of profit (Grant, 2010).

3

Using digital technologies have changed how companies create value and how they coordinate

the activities in the value chain (Barua, Konana, Whinston and Yin, 2004; Matt, Hess and

Benlian, 2015). In many ways the digitalization brings opportunities to companies by

improving the interorganizational coordination (Subramaniam and Shaw, 2002), reducing costs

(Patrutiu-Baltes, 2016), enabling for more communication with the customers (Day and

Hubbard, 2003) and improving the service (Litium, 2018). However, going from traditional

sales channels to e-commerce also means challenges with new routines and new business

models, something that makes many companies afraid to go digital (Litium, 2017; Day and

Hubbard, 2003). Earlier research has also found that the efficiency of sales and performance of

the company are affected indirectly by the use of the Internet, and therefore companies do not

always see the direct benefits of it (Avlonitis and Karayanni, 2000). However, with the rise of

digitalization and the need for digital transformation, companies are forced to re-think how

they make their offerings and create value for the customers (Lichtenthal and Eliaz, 2003). This

is where innovations come in, as companies need to be innovative and think in new ways in

order to meet changed demands from customers and stay ahead of competition. New ideas for

innovation can be found through different sources and going from traditional stores to digital

stores means that the process of identifying new opportunities changes.

1.2 Problem statement

The increased interest in digitalization in the construction industry shows that there is a great

potential for growth of B2B customers wanting to make purchases online. The companies

selling to these companies thereby need to be able to offer digital sales channels as companies

that do not make the transition to e-commerce in this digitalized society risk to be overrun by

competitors. As the transition towards e-commerce is already occurring among many B2B

companies, including the construction industry, sellers need to adapt their own business

strategy in the near future. A digital sales channel means different prerequisites with new ways

to find the products, receive the products and other methods to communicate. Hence, the

customers have new demands and preferences of value that need to be considered by the sellers.

Using digital tools has not eliminated the importance to understand the customers and it is still

important to base the offerings on the target customers. If the sellers can identify the changes

with the customer value in e-commerce, the potential for e-commerce can be fulfilled and

customers that prefer buying online can do so without sacrificing a good shopping experience

and maybe even outperform the shopping experience in physical stores with the benefits that

comes with e-commerce. Furthermore, companies that wish to stay ahead of the competition

need to be innovative in what they are offering to their customers and how they choose to offer

it.

4

1.3 Disposition

The report will follow the structure as described below. An overview of this disposition can be

seen in Figure 1.

1. Introduction which increases the understanding of digitalization, e-commerce and

customer value in a B2B context and the problems that exist in the area.

2. Literature review with a theoretical framework where previous studies in the subject of

digitalization, customer value and the innovation process are presented.

3. The purpose with the research is presented which will lead into the research questions.

4. The method is described and motivated in order to give an insight of how the research

has been conducted.

5. Results where findings from interviews are presented which gives an overview of how

a sales company approaches e-commerce, what customers value when companies

undergo a digital transformation towards e-commerce, and how the company manages

the inputs that can be used for innovation.

6. Analysis and discussion of the results and where the research questions are answered.

7. Conclusion of the research and how it contributes to the current literature is presented,

as well as the limitations and suggestions for future research.

Figure 1. The disposition of the report

5

2 Literature review

The following chapter will present current existing literature and research on business

relationships, digitalization focused on e-commerce, customer value, and the innovation

process, which is focused on the front end of innovation. The literature presented has the

intention to provide a deeper understanding of the subjects and lead into the research

questions.

2.1 Business relationships

B2B refers to a business selling to other businesses, in comparison to B2C where the buyers

are the end consumers. Cohn (2015) differentiates B2B to B2C in a few different ways. B2B

sales often include a number of stakeholders within the company that have to accept a B2B

partnership, so the suppliers must convince several “buyers” at the same time. It would be very

costly for a company to change suppliers often and therefore the relationship between

businesses are often long-term. Furthermore, B2B includes a decision-making process that is

longer than in B2C. This is because of the many stakeholders involved and the smaller number

of prospective partners (there are only a limited number of buyers) whereas in B2C anyone can

be a prospective buyer. Lastly, B2B sales often require more product knowledge. It is not

enough to only explain why one product is better than the competitor’s product, the sales

representative will need to have enough knowledge of the product to explain everything about

the product that the buyer needs to know.

It is clear that the two markets are different in several ways. According to Jobber and Lancaster

(2009), B2C customers purchase products or services for their own personal use and their

purchases are therefore more personal in nature compared to B2B markets where there are often

fewer buyers that are more complex in their buying behavior. This view is not shared by Litium

(2017) because, even though B2B sales may seem more driven by rational thinking, it is not

always the case. Buyers in B2B are still also B2C consumers and so the buying behavior in

both is interrelated. Consumers in B2C are now used to buying products one way, so there is

no reason to believe that professionals will not behave the same when buying professionally as

they do as consumers.

2.2 Digitalization

The entire society have changed and is still transforming into a more digital world while

companies are seeking new ways to explore the digital technologies available. Digitalization

itself can be described as “the networking of people and things and the convergence of the real

and virtual worlds that is enabled by information and communication technology (ICT)”

(Albach et al., 2015) while digital transformation is more focused on companies and are defined

by Matt et al. (2015) as “... strategies [that] take on a different perspective and pursue different

goals. Coming from a business-centric perspective, these strategies focus on the transformation

of products, processes, and organizational aspects owing to new technologies”. Thus, the

6

digital transformation refers to businesses’ adoption of technologies with the aim to create

value in a new way and increase the productivity.

The digitalization has made businesses redesign their business models by enabling them to

change product and service offerings, business processes, sales channels and supply chains

(Matt et al., 2015). The access to the Internet is growing and we are going into a more online

world where the businesses is highly influenced by the digitalization.

2.2.1 Electronic commerce

The digitalization has led the marketplace into an electronic marketplace with the development

of electronic commerce, also called e-commerce. The concept of e-commerce is quite new,

hence, there are several definitions of what e-commerce is. Some definitions of e-commerce

are:

“...the sale or purchase of goods or services, conducted over computer networks by methods

specifically designed for the purpose of receiving or placing of orders.” (OECD, 2013)

“...the process of buying, selling, or exchanging products, services, and information via

computer networks, including the Internet” (Turban et al., 2002)

“All electronically mediated information exchanges between an organization and its external

stakeholders” (Chaffey, 2004).

What most definitions have in common is that the buying or selling process is made digitally

and by electronic means (Gangopadhyay, 2002). While some definitions of e-commerce focus

on the transaction of goods and services, other include all business and economic activities

(Qin, Chang, Li and Li, 2014). For this reason, the term e-business is preferred by some people

as a broader definition to include all activities such as servicing customers, and not only the

buying and selling of goods (Turban et al., 2002). However, we will use the term e-commerce

to describe all activities, including pre-sale and post-sale, conducted by using electronic means

and the focus in this thesis is on webshops.

Since the e-commerce was first established it has, in a quite short amount of time, changed the

market and the buying and selling behavior. The interest in e-commerce has become big, and

it is still the fastest growing form of commerce (Laudon and Traver, 2016). The opportunities

that e-commerce bring also applies to B2B businesses, including lower costs, a faster and more

efficient supply chain, and new business opportunities (Qin et al., 2014). Hence, the interest in

e-commerce is big among B2B companies, both from the sellers’ and from the buyers’

perspective. As the fraction of consumers making purchases online is increasing, it comes

naturally that this kind of buying behavior is reflected on the B2B market as well. Many B2B

companies have already adopted e-commerce as a part of their business strategy. However, for

many B2B companies, e-commerce is only seen as a supplement to the physical store as few,

compared to the consumer market, are limited to only online stores (Collector Bank, 2019).

7

In B2B markets, the buying process can be costly and time consuming, and information

technology is something that the businesses have adopted to make the process more efficient.

Businesses tend to be early adopters of technology when compared to consumers, not the least

when it comes to expensive technology (Hanson and Kalyanam, 2007). However, there has

also been some resistance towards e-commerce within B2B markets. The difference is big

between the different industries, but many B2B companies have found it challenging to

encourage their customers to use online services (Collector Bank, 2019; Chaffey, 2004). Some

hinders might be that the customers mean that the buying process online is too impersonal, that

they want to be able to look at the products in person, or that buying online is technically

complicated (Collector Bank, 2019).

Many companies want to learn from other companies’ experiences and identify the success

factor before adopting e-commerce themselves and by that avoid the costly mistakes (Chaffey,

2004). The companies that have made the transformation of going online is mostly large

companies that do not lack the competence and resources as smaller companies often do. For

this reason, small companies risk being overrun by large companies when the customers are

going more digital (Collector Bank, 2019).

2.2.2 The transformation from analogue to digital

Going from a physical store to a digital one means several changes in the purchasing process,

including the pre-purchase phase and the post-purchase phase. Hsiao (2009) mean that the

elements in the purchasing process that is influenced the most when going from a physical store

to a digital one is the information gathering, transaction/purchase and delivery. They will be

described further below.

Information gathering. When shopping in physical stores, the information gathering is mainly

done by going to the store and collect information there. In the store, personnel are available

to provide information in the shape of face-to-face communication. When going digital, this

information is instead provided on the website, and if the customers need more information

from the personnel, the communication is digital as well with several different tools, including

e-mail and chat. Gathering information online versus in stores both have their advantages and

disadvantages. Online, customers can easily access information from all over the world, so

much information that it can actually become an overload of information. However, when

visiting a physical store information can be obtained from direct experience of multisensory

stimulation, for example seeing and feeling the products in real life (Hsiao, 2009).

Transaction/purchase. First of all, buying online means that the customer can make an order

at all hours and they do not have to adapt to opening hours. Once again, the customers do not

have to go to a store to make the purchase, but instead the order can be done from the

customer’s preferences. However, making transactions online also means other ways to make

the payments. According to Collector Bank (2019), most companies want to pay with an

invoice whereas other prefer paying with a credit card. What can become a concern for many

customers when making online purchases is the security. According to Hsiao (2009), the lack

8

of trust for secure payments lowers the willingness to make purchases online. Another concern

is the simplicity to make the payments. The study by Collector Bank (2019) showed that several

companies have discontinued the purchase process because it was technically complicated to

go further.

Delivery. The fact that the customers no longer go to the store to purchase the products also

mean that the customers do not receive the product right away. Hence, the customers are

dependent on the quality of the delivery of the products. Furthermore, Hsiao (2009) states that

the delay of receiving of the products means that it is more difficult to predict the quality of the

products. Therefore, the customers are also dependent on the option to return the product if it

does not fulfill the expectation.

2.3 Customer value

Companies are constantly searching for new ways to seek competitive advantage and many

sellers are focusing on what the customers values in the aim to gain advantage on the

marketplace (Woodruff, 1997; Anderson and Narus, 1998). The opportunities to change the

creation of value comes from new technologies and other innovative developments related to

what is offered to the customers (Amit and Zott, 2001; Schilling, 2010). Špaček and Vacík

(2016) agree on this and state that innovation can be considered a powerful value driver. To

stay ahead of competitors, companies seek new ways to further the process of innovation and

by that generate more customer value. Customer value considers what the organization’s

customers want and need when buying and using a product or service (Woodruff, 1997). This

is a central task of management as companies that fail to deliver what the customers need and

value will lose the customers to someone else as customers are seeking to maximize the value

in decision making (Doyle, 2002; Kotler, Keller, Brady, Goodman and Hansen, 2012).

Zeithaml (1988) defines customer value as “the consumer's overall assessment of the utility of

a product based on perceptions of what is received and what is given”. Thus, customer value

refers to the difference of what the customer gets and what the customer has to give up to

receive it. According to Anderson, Narus and Narayandas (2009), customers in a business

market are focusing on functionality or performance. Based on this, value in business markets

can be defined as “the worth in monetary terms of the economic, technical, service, and social

benefits a customer firm receives in exchange for the price it pays for a market offering”

(Anderson et al., 2009). Thus, customer value can be divided into different kinds of benefits

and sacrifices or costs. Kotler et al. (2012) have identified total customer benefit as the bundle

of benefits which involves benefits from the product, services, personnel and image aspects.

The total customer cost in turn involves the monetary, time, energy and psychological costs

that is required to obtain, evaluate and use the product. This is depicted in Figure 2.

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Figure 2. Determinants of customer value (Kotler et al., 2012)

The customer value needs to be integrated into the business processes so that what the

customers are expecting and what the company is offering are in line. What is important for

businesses to remember is that what is considered valuable is individual and is thus different

between different customer segments (Zeithaml, 1988). It is therefore crucial for companies

that want to deliver customer value and make it a competitive advantage to understand their

customers and being able to identify what their customers need and value.

Below, a description of types of customer values that could be impacted by the transition to

digital sales channels are presented. The further analysis will thereby be on service benefit,

personnel benefit, time cost and energy cost.

2.3.1 Services benefit

Kotler et al. (2012) defines service as “any act or performance that one party can offer to

another that is essentially intangible and is a process rather than a unit of output, focusing on

dynamic resources such as skill or knowledge and an understanding of value as a collaborative

process between providers and customers”. According to Rust and Lemon (2014), service is a

key profit and revenue driver and is thus important for the growth of companies. Voss (2000)

differentiates between three levels of service:

1. Foundation of service. The service that is essential and expected from the customers.

2. Customer-centered services. The service that differentiates.

3. Value-added services. The extra services that excites and add value for the customers.

10

Service is multifaceted and consists of many different customer-perceived dimensions, but

reliability and customization are often considered to be the most important (Zeithaml, 2000).

Reliability refers to the consistency of performance and dependability and that the service is

accurate and fulfills what have been promised (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985). Kotler

et al. (2012) agree that reliability has been found to be the most important to customers and

further mean that customers are often willing to pay premium prices for more reliable products.

Customization is when the customers have an input and can customize the product or service

to fit themselves. Companies need to be able to provide the individual customers what they

want. Kotler et al. (2012) mean that customization is a service which increases the customer

value. To be able to customize, it is of highest importance to understand the customers’ needs

and preferences, and as the companies’ ability to gather information about their customers

increase, it is now possible for them to customize more.

Service has traditionally been delivered by people, but as the stores are going digital this has

changed and services can now be provided without any human interactions. The Internet can,

according to Rust and Lemon (2014), be seen as a network for interchange of information.

Interactive information service, i.e. interactive interchange of information, has thus become an

important characteristic of service provided on the Internet and the e-economy.

When it comes to the three levels of service presented by Voss (2000), i.e. the foundation of

service, customer-centered services and value-added services, Voss (2000) has identified

different factors that gives a different level of service on the web when compared to traditional

physical stores. Among the foundation of service is delivery and Ulaga (2003) has identified it

as an important value-driver for customers in B2B markets. A number of factors influencing

the value creation by delivery have been identified. These are:

● Accuracy of delivery

● On-time delivery

● Lead time of delivery

● Flexibility of delivery

Accuracy of delivery. It is crucial for companies to receive the products that they have ordered

(Ulaga, 2003). This includes the type of products as well as the number of products.

On-time delivery. The products need to be delivered on time and the ability to meet more

exacting time standards (Ulaga, 2003; Iyer, Germain and Frankwick, 2004). Not having on-

time delivery can lead to severe consequences for the companies ordering the products, such

as delays in the work schedule and increased costs (Ulaga, 2003).

Lead time of delivery. According to Hua, Wang and Cheng (2010), the lead time of delivery

can be defined as the time it takes from when a customer is placing an order to the time when

the customer receives it. The delivery lead time is considered to be an important factor for

service quality and has a great impact on customer loyalty. Even though on-time delivery is

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sometimes more important than speedier order cycles for the customers (Iyer et al., 2004), a

shorter lead time can often increase the customer loyalty (Hua et al., 2010).

Flexibility of delivery. Customers requires that the suppliers can adjust the orders if changes

that affects the circumstances occur, such as the need to change the products or the number of

products ordered, even on a short notice (Ulaga, 2003).

Among the customer-centered services, Voss (2000) has identified trust, i.e. secure to make

financial transactions and leave personal information, configuration and customization, and

information and status as important factors. When it comes to customization, Ansari and Mela

(2003) state that e-commerce allows for mass customization for a low cost and short amount

of time. Rust and Lemon (2014) agree with this and mean that the digitalization has made it

possible to customize the communication, the product offerings and the delivery options. This

can be done by using past purchases as an indicator of the needs of the customers and collect

information from the traces that customers leave while navigating on the Internet (Ansari and

Mela, 2003). The expectations of personalized solutions have risen as firms expect to not only

base the customized information on past purchases, but there is also a need to identify needs in

different situations (Rust and Lemon, 2014). However, customers can be hesitant for

companies to use personal information as they are afraid that companies will sell that

information to other organizations (Lee and Lin, 2005). Thereby, trust and personalization can

go against each other. Corbitt, Thanasankit and Yi (2003) argue that trust is a vital influence

on e-commerce success. The trust is reflected on the general reputation of e-commerce, the

customers’ experiences and the quality of the web site. Lack of trust of managing transactions

of money and information is a factor which is highly influencing the adoption rate of e-

commerce among customers (HUI Research, 2011).

Finally, Voss (2000) mean that factors that can be included as value-added services is for

example proactive service where the customer information is stored so that the customers know

when products they are interested in are available. The Internet has provided many

opportunities to deliver qualitative service that can add value if there is an understanding of the

needs of the customers.

2.3.2 Personnel benefit

Good communication in B2B relationships have for a long time been seen as an important

factor of customer value. A lot of the industrial support services revolves around keeping the

customers at an efficient operating level (Vandermerwe and Rada, 1988). If the relationship

between the firms, where the customers expects help with resolving problems in order to avoid

delays, are ignored, the result can be severe financial losses (Bone, Fombelle, Ray and Lemon,

2014). Correlations have been found between communication and commitment that indicate

that effective communication between partners strengthens the level of commitment (Theron,

Terblanche and Boshoff, 2008). A study by Edvardsson (1988) demonstrated that when a

company solves critical situations for their customers, as in meeting the demands of the

customer in the form of for example adaptation of hardware or short delivery time, the

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relationship between the two strengthens if the situation is perceived by the customer to be

handled in a correct way. On the other hand, if customers have been forgotten or ignored, they

are unwilling to return again. So, solving, or not solving, a critical incident for the buyer could

remain a reason to return, or not return, to that specific supplier for a long time.

Several industries have seen an increased demand for consultation and guidance when their

customers are buying new products, and the customers now demand help when making their

purchase decisions (Piccoli, Brohman, Watson and Parasuraman, 2004). Guidance is

something that has been strongly associated with a personal interaction, and it has been a one-

to-one interaction between the firm and the customer (Wiertz and de Ruyter, 2007; Piccoli et

al., 2004). When going digital, the first contact is often initiated by the customers who needs

to get more information (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). On the Internet, communication is often

one-way at first as it is an interaction between a website and the customer and not between the

seller and buyer directly. It only becomes a direct contact with the company when the customer

interacts with a representative of the company. Therefore, it is impossible for a customer to

know beforehand if the personnel of the company have the required competence and skills to

provide help, unless there is already an existing relationship between both parties (Cox and

Dale, 2001). It has been demonstrated that the credibility and quality of information that can

be found on a website are relevant and have a great impact on how B2B customers perceive

their online shopping experience. Should they be in need of help from the supplier but are

unable to get it, they will go to a different supplier. This indicates that there is a need for

available service representatives on B2B websites (McLean, 2017). Research from 2013

showed that in 2012, help services accessed through the Internet was growing. The rise in self-

service usage on the web was 12% and chat usage grew 24% (Legett, 2013). This trend was

also seen in 2016 where customers were moving from obtaining help over the phone to using

more self-service options such as virtual agents and chatbots (Legett, 2017).

The Internet is a tool that has changed not only how companies present messages and

information to their customers, but also the way they sell their products (Hofacker, 2018).

Customers that find a strong relationship between both parties as something important often

mention an enhanced communication that is more understanding, leading to an effective and

efficient relationship where problems are addressed more easily (Ulaga, 2003). Though, for

suppliers it is important to remember that not all customers are the same. Some customers want

no support at all, some are content with FAQs if they have a problem, and others are dependent

on personal support by phone, e-mail or in person when they want to buy a product (Chaffey

and Smith, 2017; Piccoli et al., 2004). Sales companies state that e-commerce gives customers

anonymity and makes the selling process impersonal, making it hard to build long-term

relationships (HUI, 2011). Though, it has also been found that e-commerce in the B2B

environment are expected to increase coordination and relationships between business partners

(Subramaniam and Shaw, 2002).

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2.3.3 Time and energy costs

Monetary costs are not always the most important costs for customers. Many states that non-

monetary costs such as time and energy are just as important, if not more (Carothers and

Adams, 1991; Ganesh, Reynolds, Luckett and Pomirleanu, 2010). The time and energy aspects

of buying are described below.

Time. Most people today are extremely careful with what they choose to do with their time.

Time has become something that people feel they need to spend carefully. Therefore, it is

relevant for businesses to include offers that can help their customers lower the time costs they

are experiencing. For physical stores, time related costs can for example be the time it takes to

travel to the store or the time it takes to find information on what products to buy. E-commerce

has addressed some of these costs, but there are also traps within this area that sellers need to

watch out for. Buyers nowadays want to spend their time carefully by for example avoiding

wasting it on websites that are slow or confusing and information should therefore be easily

accessed. A good designed website that works properly is important as buyers are prepared to

spend more time on and return to sites they like (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). Saving time has

been found to be important for higher-income consumers that are more inclined than lower-

income consumers to buy online because of the time it saves, though it had an impact on lower-

income consumers as well (Punj, 2012).

Energy. As stated earlier, customers are not only driven by monetary and time related resources

but also by emotional and cognitive resources where the buying behavior of customers are

trade-offs between these. Depending on what a customer wants, there are different motivations

to why they want it and how they will require it. Searching, comparing, selecting and acquiring

a specific product requires not only time and money, but is also consuming energy and

cognitive resources (Ianole, 2017). Costs related to energy can for example be waiting in lines,

adjusting working schedules to go to stores or finding the correct products (Kim, Lee and Park,

2014).

Buyers have to go through social and mental aspects in the buying process and use energy when

thinking, feeling and deciding on what to buy and where. The increased availability of e-

commerce has made it possible for more convenient shopping for customers that can now make

their purchases online. A buyer that has decided to buy products over the Internet can save their

own time and energy by buying everything he or she needs while remaining stationary (Ianole,

2017; Kim et al., 2014). There are no physical constraints where for example the buyer has to

go to a store, the customer can instead access it any time he or she chooses (Awais and Samin,

2012; Escobar-Rodríguez and Bonsón-Fernández, 2017). Furthermore, it is possible to identify

the stock status of the products needed and buy everything directly instead of going to a store,

risking that the products needed are out of stock (Rotondaro, 2002).

The ability for customers to buy products without having to go to a physical store has been

found to be the most positive benefit of e-commerce because it is convenient. Hence, the

literature focuses on the positive aspects of time and energy in e-commerce and do not discuss

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the downsides. Buying through the Internet creates value for customers as it can be used

anywhere at any time. In order to meet what customers value with online shopping, retailers

must re-evaluate their offers in order to minimize the amount of money, time and energy the

customers have to use (Kim et al., 2014).

2.3.4 Digitalization’s impact on customer value

The digitalization and the use of Internet have changed how the customers perceive value and

how value is delivered. Chaffey and Smith (2017) state that the new conditions that e-

commerce have given have raised the expectations of the customers with higher demands on

the service, the speed of the service and delivery, prices and convenience. The Internet has

shifted the control towards the customers and the customers expect convenience throughout

the whole process of purchase, consumption and post-purchase support (Rust and Lemon,

2014). This means that more is required from the selling companies to fulfil the expectations

of the customers and avoid damaging the brand.

Based on the customer values presented earlier, the impacts of digitalization seen in Table 1

have been identified.

Table 1. Buyer benefits and sacrifices in e-commerce

Benefits Sacrifices

Personnel Personnel

Many communication alternatives

Improve coordination between partners

Impersonal communication

Service Service

More customization

Easily accessed information

Uncertainty about the security regarding

payments and leaving personal information

Dependency of good delivery

Inability to see the physical product

beforehand

Time and energy Time and energy

Can buy products anytime

Can buy products from anywhere/The store

is wherever the customer is

2.4 The innovation process

Innovation is often considered a driver for success in the highly competitive global market

where it is important to constantly differentiate the products and services from the competitors

(Schilling, 2010). In broad terms, innovation can be defined as using knowledge to do

something in a new way, which can include products, services and processes, and applicating

it in practice (Schilling, 2010; Lund et al., 2011). Because innovation involves the creation of

something new, the process to innovate can be highly uncertain (Kline and Rosenberg, 2010).

There are however some steps that most innovation processes go through. The whole

15

innovation process can, according to Koen et al. (2001), be divided into three parts: the Front

End of Innovation (FEI), New Product and Process Development (NPPD), and the

Commercialization. This is depicted in Figure 3.

Figure 3. The process of innovation

As can be seen in Figure 3, the first phase in the innovation process is the FEI. This phase is

known to be a bit chaotic and unstructured compared to the next phase, NPPD. The stages that

are included in the FEI and hence are the first stages in the innovation process are depicted in

Figure 4.

Figure 4. The Front End of Innovation process (Koen et al., 2001)

Hence, the stages are:

1. Opportunity identification

2. Opportunity analysis

3. Idea genesis

4. Idea selection

5. Concept and technology development

These five elements in the process of FEI do not necessarily happen in this particular sequel,

and they can, as stated by Koen et al. (2001), occur randomly. Since this research is focused

on the customer value, which includes how they change and how to, as a company, capture the

changes and create value for the customers, the focus will be on opportunity identification

rather than how to generate new concepts. Moreover, this is the phase that we find the most

interesting in the transition to e-commerce. NPPD and Commercialization are focusing more

16

on developing an actual product, building a strategy and launching it on the market. As this is

not within the scope of this thesis either, it will not be explained further.

2.4.1 Opportunity identification

Opportunity identification is a company’s chance to recognize a new opportunity by for

example observing trends or new demands from customers. As stated by Koen et al. (2001),

the opportunity can be everything from a minor upgrade of an existing product or service or

something completely new, leading the company into a new direction. From here, the innovator

needs to find the specific “pain points” of the opportunity and define these. The pain point

describes the emotional pain, which can be either real or subconscious, of the customer that

could benefit from this new opportunity. For companies, it is beneficial if groups of customers

with similar pain points can be identified in order to create an accurate market segmentation

and positioning of the opportunity (De Bonte and Fletcher, 2014).

For a company to be successful in developing new ideas, it is of vital importance that new

information related to new ideas can be gathered. In companies, a lot of these ideas come from

the customers. Many innovations fail economically because they do not fulfill the requirement

that the customers have (Schilling, 2010). An important part of the process of identifying

opportunities is therefore to collect information from the customers and analyze it to identify

requirements. The salesforce play an important role in collecting new ideas and information

related to new ideas from customers and they are often seen as the “voice of the customer” as

they are in a position where they are in a daily contact with the customers and can get access

to important information about their problems and requirements. Though, as most of these ideas

are related to problems with the current offering, it can be seen as more short-term and can only

give a competitive advantage that is temporary. Therefore, it is dangerous to rely solely on the

customers for new ideas and innovations. For the best effect, both customers and an internal

R&D-division are needed as sources for new innovations (Gordon, Schoenbachler, Kaminski

and Brouchous, 1997).

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3 Purpose and research questions

From previous literature, it is clear that digitalization could well be the next revolution, such

as mechanization and electricity were in the past. The new technology of digitalization means

new opportunities to change the value proposition through new innovation processes. Many

companies see the need to digitalize their business, and there has been an increased interest in

e-commerce among customers as well. However, a new sales channel means new ways to

create and deliver value to the customers, meaning that sales companies need to adapt to new

demands and challenges. The impact of digitalization on B2C markets have been the subject

of more research than the impact on B2B markets. Hence, some of the literature presented is

based on a B2C context but because of the special characteristics of B2B markets it is of highest

interest to examine that market separately.

With this, the purpose with the research is to cover the gap in the current literature regarding

the impact that digitalization and e-commerce has on customer values in B2B sales, specifically

from the point of view of the Swedish construction industry. This because it is an industry

where the customers have been slow to adopt e-commerce. The focus will be on the types of

values that are affected the most by digitalization. In this case we refer the term digitalization

to the process of making information, offerings and the communication with the customers

digital. Furthermore, we aim to investigate how the front end of innovation, specifically the

identification of innovation, is affected by the increased interest in making purchases online in

a B2B context. This because, even though the existing literature discusses the front end of

innovation, it does not discuss how it is affected by the use of a digital marketplace where there

is a physical distance between the company and customers.

To fulfill this purpose, the following research questions will be answered and analyzed:

Q1. In what ways are critical customer values affected when B2B firms within the construction

industry move towards e-commerce?

Q2. How does the transition to e-commerce affect the front end of innovation?

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4 Method

The following chapter presents the methods used in the research and the motivations behind

them. This includes defining the research approach and how information and data have been

collected. Furthermore, the chapter presents the case company as well as a discussion about

validity, reliability and the ethical aspects.

4.1 Research approach

Research methods can be divided into two different categories, qualitative and quantitative

methods. Qualitative research can be described as being subjective where the researcher has an

inside-out perspective and where the research is built on successively, with data based on

descriptions from the informants (Olsson and Sörensen, 2011). Quantitative research on the

other hand is more objective and have an outside perspective, with the distance between the

researcher and the informant being stressed.

During the thesis project we have used a qualitative approach, but also supplemented it with

quantitative data. By combining them we could make use of the different advantages and

possibilities that the different methods bring. According to Holme and Solvang (1997), the

qualitative data and methods show an overall picture and a deeper understanding of the actors’

perspective. Hence, the qualitative methods were useful when we wanted to have a deep

understanding of the situation and the mindset of the different actors when it comes to their

experience of buying or selling online. However, as stated by Holme and Solvang (1997), using

quantitative data and methods can be used when more univocal variables and answers that can

be comparable with each other are wanted as a result. The quantitative data was therefore used

to indicate what is important when shopping and communicating online in a straightforward

way and to rank different options against each other. Though, the informants that have been

used in the qualitative part have also conducted the quantitative one, so the quantitative part

did not include more informants.

The research process can, according to Olsson and Sörensen (2011), follow three different

lines: deductive, inductive or abductive. A deductive approach means that a hypothesis is

developed and tested based on already existing theory, whereas an inductive approach is using

findings from the research to find patterns and develop theory. An abductive approach is a mix

between a deductive and an inductive approach where theories can be both tested and built on

using observations. We used an abductive approach as we wanted to use the existing theory on

customer value in a B2B context and the impact digital solutions has, but at the same time

combine these areas by collecting data to get a better understanding of how they relate to each

other, and so new theories could be built. The thesis project started with the gathering of theory

that later on was applied in real situations. Thereby, the theory was used as a foundation for the

interviews. The interviews were the base for the inductive part of the research as we could build

new knowledge from that. After gathering empirical data, the result could be further

complemented with more theory to make an analysis that gives a good overview of the areas.

To test theory and to make observations and build new theory was thus an iterative process.

19

Using an abductive approach allowed us to combine the existing theory and empirical data in

an appropriate way so that we could fulfil the purpose of the research.

4.2 Selection of literature

The theory that has been used in the research concerns literature on digitalization and value

creation in B2B relationships. To get both an in-depth analysis as well as broader insights about

the subjects, both books and articles have been used during the research. Trustworthy sources

have been of importance, which is why we have considered both why the articles chosen have

been published in different academic journals and the number of times the article has been used

as a reference. The articles have, as with the books, been found in a variety of databases,

including Google Scholar, Scopus and DiVa, or in the library at KTH. When searching for

literature, different keywords related to the subject have been used. To broaden the results,

synonyms and different spellings have been used in the search. The most important keywords

used in the search for literature are the following: B2B, business-to-business, digitalization,

value creation, business relationship, e-commerce, Internet, customer value, innovation. In

many cases the articles led to new appropriate articles and books that were useful for the

research, as well as new keywords that could be used to find new literature. The process of

selecting literature has therefore been a process of making use of new information and moving

on from that, and replace the literature used in the end based on relevance to our purpose.

4.3 Data collection

To answer the research questions empirical data has been collected. This empirical data has

been collected from interviews with customers and internal representatives at the case

company.

4.3.1 Interviews

There are different types of interviews and all of them have both advantages and disadvantages.

Here, both qualitative and quantitative methods have been used and the interview methods used

were both structured and semi-structured. The semi-structured part of the interviews had open-

ended questions where the interviewees were forced to elaborate their answers rather than just

answer yes or no or choose between a number of options. The structured part of the interviews

was of a more quantitative character where the interviewees were asked to rate fixed answers

rather than elaborate on their own experiences. According to Patel and Davidson (2003), a

common way to start an interview is to begin with open-ended questions and successively go

more into detail as it helps the interviewee to become more comfortable which makes the

interview flow more naturally. Therefore, if the interviewee had enough time, the interviews

started with open-ended questions before focusing on specific details. Furthermore, Patel and

Davidson (2003) states that an explanation of how the answers of the interviewee will be used

and if they are confidential or not and anonymous or not will need to be clarified to make sure

the interviewee can answer as openly as he or she wants. This was taken into consideration

when conducting the interviews for this research.

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We were able to perform some interviews in person while some have been conducted over

phone or through Skype. Both of these methods have advantages and disadvantages. By

performing interviews in person, we were able to not only get the information needed for the

research, but we could also make observations of the reactions of the respondent. Tone of voice,

facial expressions and pauses can give information that is not mediated through an answer

written in a survey (Bell, 2000). The disadvantage is that the conversation may be subject to

negative factors such as misunderstandings of body language or gestures (Patel and Davidson,

2003). The respondent could also be biased by the characteristics of the interviewer, such as

accent or gender, and his or her perception of the interviewer (Sapsford and Jupp, 1996). The

advantage of interviewing over the phone is that misunderstandings of body language or

gestures are non-existent.

In order to minimize biases and make all interviews as similar as possible, Sapsford and Jupp

(1996) states that the ideal structured interview schedule should consist of these four elements:

1. Questions asked should be the same for all respondents. The method of asking questions

should also be standardized, with the interviewer first stating the purpose of the research

and using the same interview format.

2. If the respondent does not understand a question and asks for clarification, the

supplementary information should be non-directory.

3. The respondent should feel motivated to continue the interview, which is affected by

the context, length of interview and motivation from the interviewer to go on.

4. The responses from interviewees should be able to be categorized.

In this research, we have tried to keep true to these four elements as much as possible. Two

interview guides, which can be found in Appendix A and Appendix B, have been used. One

guide was used for internal interviews with the case company (Appendix A) and one guide was

used for external interviews with their customers (Appendix B). These are mostly the same

with some minor corrections in order to direct the questions to the specific interviewee

depending on if it was an internal or external interview. Though, it is also important to state

that flexibility from our side have been vital as a few interviewees have not been able to answer

some questions due to limited experience in a specific area. Furthermore, it was not possible to

use the same setting in all interviews as some interviewees requested interviews over the phone

or Skype while some could meet in person.

4.3.2 Conducting the interviews

In total, seven interviews were conducted, which included four interviews internally with

representants from the case company and three interviews externally with customers of the case

company. Before the interviews took place, the interview guides were sent to the interviewees

so that they could decide if they wanted to be a part of the research or not and could prepare

for the interview if needed. The interviewees had the opportunity to choose time and place for

the interview, including if they preferred to conduct the interview in person or over the phone.

21

In the case with the internal interviews, the survey was done during the interview, while the

survey for the customers were dispatched to the three interviewed customers through the case

company’s internal survey system. Whether how or where the interviews were held, both of us

took part of the interview where one of us were focusing on asking the questions while the

other one was taking notes. Except taking notes to save the answers, the interviews were also

recorded, something that was always approved by the interviewees beforehand. Since both we

and the interviewees use Swedish as native language, the interviews were held in Swedish. This

means that the data collected from the interviews has been translated to English after the

interviews which could affect how some answers are perceived.

4.3.3 Internal interviews

The interviewees from the case company were chosen based on their insight on the topic of the

research. The ones that participated in the study has different roles in the company and are

working in different parts of the organization, which enabled us to get different perspectives

on the topic. Due to the fact that the interviewees had more insight into some areas of the

company, and less in other areas, there were some questions that could be answered by one

interviewee but not another. However, this gave us a complete description of the company from

different point of views. This way, we were presented with a fair view of how the company is

working with digitalization and e-commerce in particular, and how the innovation process is

impacted by this.

Table 2. Conducted internal interviews

Company Interview Position in the company Data collection

A HCD Head of Construction

Division

Personal interview; audio recorded

and transcribed, duration 49 min

A HI Head of Innovation Skype interview; audio recorded and

transcribed, duration 41 min

A HEC Head of E-Commerce Skype interview; audio recorded and

transcribed, duration 47 min

A CMO Chief Marketing Officer Personal interview; audio recorded

and transcribed, duration 51 min

4.3.4 External interviews

The customers that were interviewed were a part of the case company's customer panel. The

incentives offered to the customers for participating in the study was a check for 250 SEK to

be used at the case company. Initially there were four external interviews planned, though one

interviewee did not have enough time to participate and had to be cut out of the research. All

interviewees have a high position with good insight of the purchase process in different

companies within the construction industry. This was made sure so that the answers would be

reliable and would be in line with how their company is actually making purchases and what

they value. To get a broader perspective, the customers were from companies with different

sizes, but still in the SME area. Information about larger companies were instead provided by

22

the case company, which made it possible to compare if companies with different sizes have

different views on e-commerce and core values in the purchase process.

Table 3. Conducted external interviews

Company Interview Position in the company Data collection

B Customer 1 Electrician and facility

manager

Telephone interview; audio

recorded and transcribed, duration

15 min

C Customer 2 Firm owner, installation of

Building Management

Systems

Telephone interview; audio

recorded and transcribed, duration

25 min

D Customer 3 Service technician Telephone interview; audio

recorded and transcribed, duration

29 min

4.4 Data analysis

The data collected from the interviews had to be compiled and analyzed before comparing it

with the literature. As both a qualitative and a quantitative approach were used, different kinds

of data needed to be analyzed. The quantitative data were more organized from before the

interview and could thereby be analyzed right away. However, the data from the qualitative

part needed the be structured and organized after the interviews took place. Therefore, it was

analyzed using the concept of thematic analysis presented by Braun and Clarke (2006). The

concept consists of six phases, which can be seen in Figure 5.

Figure 5. The process of analyzing the qualitative data

The six phases can be described as followed:

1. Transcript. The interviews were first transcribed to get familiar with the collected data

by listening to the recordings from the interviews and re-reading notes. In this phase,

everything from the interviews were documented so that nothing important could be

left out and so that no information would be taken out of context before analyzing it.

2. Coding. Different features of the data were coded systematically by going through the

transcript and highlighting interesting aspects. Hence, important information was

collected to narrow down the data to the focused area.

3. Searching themes. The next step was to collate the collected codes into different themes.

This mean that all data relevant to potential themes was gathered in the first step of

creating themes. These themes are areas that for different reasons came up while going

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through the data, e.g. areas that were brought up a lot or that it needed to be compared

with the collected theory.

4. Reviewing themes. The collection of themes was reviewed by confirming that the data

within the themes followed a coherent pattern and that the different themes were clearly

distinct from each other.

5. Defining themes. This step was about analyzing the themes and defining what the

themes were about.

6. Finalizing. The last phase in the data analysis was to do a final analysis of the themes

and to finalize it as results.

The data collected from the interviews were then compared with the theory from the literature

review to see if there was a connection there and also to investigate if there were any relevant

theory that had not been covered in the literature review yet.

When it comes to the quantitative data and how it can be combined with the qualitative data

there are, according to Sandelowski (2000), different approaches. Either the quantitative data

can be converted to become qualitative or vice versa, or the two datasets can be held separate.

In this case, the later alternative has been used, where the quantitative data has stayed

quantitative and has instead been used to supplement and clarify the qualitative data by

identifying patterns in the answers. Hence, the purpose with the quantitative part was not to

use it as statistics, but rather to get a better understanding of the answers from the open-ended

questions. This because of the low amount of answers that would not have given any statistical

value.

4.4.1 Coding

The findings from the interviews have been collected and analyzed, which is presented in the

thematic maps in Figure 6 and Figure 7, the internal and external interviews respectively.

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Figure 6. Map with coding of the internal interviews, sub-themes and themes.

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Figure 7. Map with coding of the external interviews, sub-themes and themes.

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4.5 Case company

In the research, a case company has been used to analyze their customers and how they work

with e-commerce. The case company is a leading distributor of installation products in Sweden

within a wide range of industries, including construction. This results in a wide product range

with over 1,000,000 articles that are offered to the customers. Their customers are strictly

within the B2B market and of a variety of business sizes. Other than Sweden, the company is

also operative in Scandinavia and a few other countries in Europe. Their aim is to make an

efficient commerce of products for professional users while having a close and personal

connection with the customers. The stores are described as a meeting point where you can ask

for help, meet other people within your industry and be presented with new products. As of

today, the company has over 100 stores spread out in Sweden and also a webshop which

according to their annual report from 2018 represented more than a fourth of the total revenue.

They were among the first in their industry to see the need for a webshop which they

implemented nearly 20 years ago when e-commerce was still new. With the alternatives of

sales channels, the customers can choose the channel that suits them the best.

4.6 Reliability and validity

It is of highest importance that the research has a high reliability and validity. Lundahl and

Skärvad (1999) defines validity as the absence of systematic errors in measurements and have

divided it into two different types of validity, internal and external validity. Internal validity

refers to the correspondence between the theoretical and the operational definition, thus

meaning that it ensures that what is measured is the same as what is intended to be measured.

To ensure that the research has achieved a high internal validity, the interview guides were

based on relevant literature found in the subject and were also reviewed by senior researchers

before conducting the real interviews. It has also been important to make sure that the literature

related to digitalization that has been used is up to date since the technology has rapidly

developed. Therefore, we have tried not to use literature from before the year of 2000 while

data describing the current status of digitalization has only been taken from recent years.

External validity is, according to Lundahl and Skärvad (1999), instead focusing on the

correspondence between the measured value from the operational definition, in this case from

the interviews, and the reality. A high external validity has been achieved by ensuring that the

interviewees have the right knowledge in the field of area of customer value and e-commerce

as well as the right position in their firm to be able to answer the questions as trustworthy as

possible.

Reliability is defined by Lundahl and Skärvad (1999) as the absence of random errors in

measurements. The research should thereby not be affected by coincidences of whom is

performing the interview or circumstances related to where the interview is conducted. To

ensure a high reliability the interviews were standardized with the same questions and around

the same length of time so that the interviews were as identical as possible. However, as not all

interviewees were able to meet in person some interviews were instead conducted over phone

which may have affected the answers and the reliability.

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4.7 Ethics

A good research practice has been emphasized where the fundamental principles of research

integrity presented by All European Academies (2017) have been central. These principles are

reliability, honesty, respect and accountability. Having a good ethics has been of high

importance throughout the research, including factors such as integrity, confidentiality,

anonymity and the real purpose of the research which are factors that Bell (2000) emphasizes.

All respondents have been informed of the purpose of the research and what the information

they have provided will be used for. Before starting the research, a confidentiality agreement

was signed with the case company and all possible confidential information from all

participants have been clarified and left out from the report or spread in any other way so that

no vulnerable information would come out. Except that the case company is held anonymous

to avoid spreading of information, every informant is anonymous to avoid any information

being linked to one person. During the interviews, the informants have always had the

opportunity to leave whenever they wanted to, and any kind of recordings were always

approved by the informants beforehand.

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5 Results

This chapter aims to present the results of the study by analyzing the data collected from the

interviews. The results are thus based on the data analysis which can be found in Figure 6 and

Figure 7 in Chapter 4.4.1.

5.1 The entrance of e-commerce

How e-commerce has emerged at the case company and among their customers within the

construction industry has been of interest during the interviews. Both the customers and the

case company have witnessed a transition of how purchases can be made. However, the drive

to make this transition of selection of sales channels may look different between different

customers and the transition comes with challenges, both from the customers’ perspective and

from the case company’s perspective. This section will present some of the quotes that led to

the codes from the themes Selection of sales channel, Implementation of e-commerce and

Effects on segments in Figure 6 and Selection of sales channel in Figure 7.

5.1.1 Choosing e-commerce as a sales channel

The e-commerce has become an important sales channel for many, something that the case

company were early to anticipate when introducing the e-commerce:

“We were early to understand that commerce did not just occur in physical stores or via

salespeople making the order, but that there was also an incipient need to make an order by

yourself.”

It thus became obvious that the customers’ will to buy online increased when e-commerce was

introduced on the market, and the case company wanted to follow the trend and be where the

customers are and with that also offer multiple sales channels:

“It’s about offering this multichannels’ thinking, meaning that we should be where the

customers are.”

Both the customers and the internal interviewees agreed that there are advantages with buying

online compared with going to the physical stores. For the case company, the e-commerce

enables, except serving the customers’ needs, being able to make their internal processes more

efficient. In the meanwhile, e-commerce is from the customers’ perspective seen as an

alternative when the physical stores are closed or being a offered a bigger range of products:

“If the physical stores are closed and I need it the next day, I buy it online instead.”

“Most of the time you know what you want, and those products are not always available in

the physical stores.”

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When to choose to make the purchases online or in the physical stores are thus sometimes

decided based on where the products can be found. In many cases though, the decision of sales

channel is based on when the products are needed. E-commerce is mentioned by the customers

to be a good alternative when the purchases are planned in advance and you need it the next

day or later than that. In these cases, the purchases can, by using the digital store, be made from

anywhere, meaning that the customers do not have to go to a store during its opening hours:

“In most of the cases I choose e-commerce when the purchases are planned, while I take

physical stores on the way back home.”

“E-commerce is a good supplement to receive the goods the next day.”

“If I can lay in my sofa and make the orders, I would only have to move a finger. Then I do

not have to run around confused among the shelves.”

5.1.2 Experienced challenges with e-commerce

Using e-commerce does come with challenges though. There are hinders that the case company

has to deal with and hinders which makes customers choose physical stores instead. In the case

of the customers, it is for some customers sometimes considered easier to go to a physical store.

This because the interviewed customers had stores nearby:

“I have not felt the need [to buy online]. I have a store close to where I live, so it is close in

that way.”

As mentioned, the purchases made online are often the purchases that are planned. On the

contrary, purchases where the products are needed straight away after the need has been

discovered are instead done in the physical stores. The time delay that comes with ordering

online and waiting on the delivery is thereby a hinder which highly influence the choice of

sales channel. Technical difficulties have also been seen as a hinder to an interviewee who

otherwise was interested to buy online but has failed to understand how to access the digital

store.

When it comes to the case company, introducing e-commerce as a part of the business strategy

means having to reorganize for a lot of different products and also work in a new way where it

is more agile and cross-functional. This new way of working and thinking also has to be

transferred to the employees, which according to the interviewees is a challenge, as there is

always challenges when making changes in the organization. In the case of introducing e-

commerce, the challenge is to make the employees understand that e-commerce is a supplement

and not a threat:

“It is not that the seller is not needed or is not doing a good job, but what it is about is that

what he or she is doing is also needed to be done online.”

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To make this happen, the interviewees emphasize communication as an important tool to get

everyone in the organization to understand the changes.

For the case company, one drawback with digital stores over physical stores is that it is,

according to one of the internal interviewees beliefs, easier to generate additional sales in the

physical stores when salespeople are around and can help to recommend more products and

the customers have to go through the store:

“The advantage with the physical stores is that it is easier to generate additional sales as the

customers buy with the eyes in a different way and there is a good salesperson who can sell

more. In digital store it can easily become that the customers only buy what they need unless

you don’t succeed with the offerings and ‘have you thought about this?’.”

Another challenge is that both the technology and the requirements of the customers are

changing in a faster rate, something that the case company needs to have in mind and adapt to.

5.1.3 Digital maturity

How far different customers have come with the digitalization and how they choose between

digital stores and the traditional physical differs a lot. The case company reaches out to a wide

range of customer segments within different areas and different sizes, which have been seen to

affect the overall needs:

“The customers have different sizes and they belong to very different kinds of areas, which

mean that they can have very different kinds of needs.”

The size of the company and the area that it is within are factors which has also been seen to

affect the digital maturity according to the interviewees. Large companies often prefer buying

online and even have their purchasing systems directly connected to the system of the case

company in order to make the purchases more efficient. In some companies the employees are

even prohibited to go to physical stores because of the extra time that it takes:

“Large customers prefer buying online via direct integration with purchasing systems for

efficiency. The integration between us and them saves them time and makes it easier for

them.”

“The large customers have begun to control their indirect purchases. They don’t allow their

employees to go to physical stores anymore since it takes too much time.”

This difference between small and large companies when it comes to the integration between

business systems partly has to do with resources but buying online or in a physical store also

depends on the need. According to the internal interviewees, smaller companies often have fast

needs where they do not know what they need until the same day after a visit at the place of

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work. A visit at a physical store thereby means that they can get the needed products right

away:

“Smaller customers may have fast needs which can be easily solved by going to the store.”

Moreover, as mentioned in Chapter 5.1.2, the relatively small customers that were interviewed

did not fully see the need of buying online, but the ones that did saw it is a supplement to the

physical stores. In the meanwhile, internal interviewees witnessed a prohibition of going to the

physical stores among large companies, which shows that there is a difference in the maturity

of e-commerce. As the case company wants to serve all customers, this is something that they

have in mind and is working with. However, an internal interviewee meant that the trend is

showing that the differences between the customer segments decrease:

“I think that the differences between different customer segments are erased now. Some

different demands, but the trend is quite clear. In a few years we will probably not have big

differences between segments.”

As of now, the interviewed customers meant that they were satisfied with how they were using

the sales channels now and did not think that this would change. However, the customers had

also witnessed a change since before when e-commerce was not an option and all purchases

were done in physical stores. Furthermore, the survey demonstrated that customers preferred

using phone or e-mail, as they had done previously, when contacting the case company while

the case company were moving towards options such as the chat, suggesting a change in

communication options is underway.

5.2 Important customer values and how they are met

Throughout the interviews, questions about customer values and interviewees’ perception of

different customer values regarding both the physical store and the digital store have been

brought up. For the most part, the case company and the customers share the view of what is

important and less important in the different aspects of service, personnel and time and energy

within the area of online shopping versus shopping in physical stores. Chapter 5.2 is treating

the theme Customer values and includes quotes from both an internal (case company) and

external (customer) perspective which can be found in Figure 6 and Figure 7.

5.2.1 Important customer values in service

From the interviews, it is clear that both the customers and the interviewees from the case

company stresses the importance of the delivery when ordering products online. The delivery

is a central part when ordering online, which was obvious in both the qualitative study and the

quantitative one where it was seen as one of the most important customer values. The customers

trust and demand that the products they have ordered should arrive when and where they want

it to arrive, and if any problems should occur, it needs to be communicated:

“It is important that the products come to the right place at the right time and to the right

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person.”

“The communication and feedback on the order must be good [...] so that I have everything

under control.”

The customers that was interviewed understand that problems and delays can occur, and they

do not have a big problem with that as long as they are informed and are allowed to reschedule.

This is also something that the case company agrees with and holds in high regard:

“Good communication when something deviates in the order so that the customer gets an

opportunity to reschedule.”

Furthermore, both the customers and the internal interviewees find it very important that there

is enough product data online as the customers can not feel and see the products in real life.

The customers need sufficient data in the form of for example text and pictures in order to buy

the correct products. Without the correct product data, it is hard for the customer to know if he

or she will get the product they need and would they get the wrong product with for example

the wrong dimensions, there will most likely be delays in their work. This is seen as a challenge

at the case company as they themselves are only distributors and are dependent on the data they

get from their suppliers. Every supplier has their own way of presenting their product:

“That puts a demand on us that we should be able to store that product data, but also to

present it […] we have thousands of suppliers, and everyone may do it their own way. Some

take pictures and post them one after another, someone makes a movie and a third do an

animation that the customer can drag and turn around in a 360 view. How should we present

all that? There are different technical solutions, with new demands. But product data is the

common denominator.”

Looking at the physical stores, customers find it vital that the products they need are available.

All of the internal customers that were interviewed had this on top of their most important

customer values in the physical store according to the quantitative survey. Most interviewees

go to the store when they need products immediately and do not have the time to wait for a

delivery.

5.2.2 Personal relations in the physical store and online

All of the customers we interviewed stated that the personal relation with the case company

was one of the reasons that they chose to do their purchases there. They valued the hospitality

and nice atmosphere of the personnel in the physical stores, one interviewee even stated that

he would turn around and go out from the store if he did not see any familiar faces in the staff

because he did not trust that they could help him then. The knowledge of the staff and

willingness to help was seen as important for the other interviewees as well. This personal

relationship is something that the interviewees within the case company agrees with, as the HI

stated that their goal is to get the customers to feel that the case company is a good partner

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rather than only a place to shop for products. HI also stated that they would even try to meet

requests from customers about products that they did not have available in the product range:

“Let’s say that a large customer wants to buy something that is not in our warehouse or not

even in our product range, then we will help them get the products that they want.”

Contrary to the physical store, customers do not value the personal contact in as high regards

in the online store. They have come to terms with the fact that online shopping is more

independent, though should they be in need of help, they think that it is important that it is

easily accessible. One thing that customers found important in the digital store was that they

could find the relevant information to be able to buy the correct products. Furthermore,

customers did not want to feel that the website was intrusive or excessive in trying to help:

“... then they can say that ‘you were interested in this’ or ‘you were looking at this, is there

something else I can help you with?’. That can be a little intrusive and I feel is a bit

exaggerated. It is an excessive request to help, that I have not asked for.”

Here the case company stated that it was a fine line to walk as some customers sometimes

found it extremely helpful to get reminders of what they might need to buy while other times

the help was more based on what other customers had usually bought, which was not helpful

at all.

The view of online shopping as more independent is shared by both the HI and the CMO of the

case company. The CMO further believes that customers will continue to think that they have

a good relationship with the company even though the customers receive help digitally, for

example through a robot concerning simpler questions such as help with a password or finding

out where the customer’s order is at the moment.

5.2.3 What is time and energy consuming and how is this addressed

The customers we interviewed saw the physical stores as a supplement to the online store as

they valued the availability of the physical store and that it was nationwide. That way, they

always had the option to go to a store if they would find that they were missing a product that

they needed immediately. This saved them time and energy as they know that the case company

is reliable and offer a wide range of products, making it likely that they have the products the

customer need in stock. On the downside, the customers stated that it could be exhausting and

time consuming to go the physical store because sometimes it was hard to find the specific

product they needed and they had to run around confused, trying to find what they were looking

for.

That the products actually are in stock in the physical store was seen as one of the most

important values according to the survey, but the customers also understood that some products

could be out of order. Though, in the online store, one customer stated that he expected the

products to always be in stock:

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“Actually, the e-commerce should be better than the physical store, regarding the number of

goods on the shelf. In the online store, I really expect an unlimited amount of goods. So,

whatever I want, I can get in the online store. In the physical store, I understand that they

may run out of a specific product. But in the online store, of course they can run out of

products there as well, but not really.”

Both in the online store and in the physical store, customers valued the fact that the case

company offered a wide range of products so that they could find everything they needed in

one place. The case company stated that it was very important for them as well. They wanted

to make it as easy as possible for the customers, helping them save time and energy by offering

an all-in-one package:

“The customers can order so much from the same place. They get it in one order, on one

invoice and they can get it linked to their own chart of accounts.”

“I think that the better we can help the customers, not just to buy single products, but to do

the whole job [would make it easier for the customers].”

Customers mostly ordered online when doing planned purchases. If they knew what they

needed and could wait a day or two before receiving the products, they preferred ordering

online. That way, they could continue on with other work that needed to be done, saving time

and energy on not having to go to the store and instead being efficient in other ways. An

interviewee at the case company also stated that bigger construction companies do not want

their employees to go to the physical stores at all:

“The big companies think that we can close the physical stores because they do not want

their employees to go there. Above all because there are so many visits to our store and two

employees may be gone from the workplace for two hours to get a pipe part and they will get

some coffee and a sandwich as well when they are here.”

According to the customers, the downside with the large range of products were that they

sometimes found it hard to find the correct products online. They did not want to see any

products from other segments than their own because that made them annoyed and it took time.

Having to spend time searching for products, either in the physical store or in the digital store,

are together with long lines and having to wait for help considered to be the most time-

consuming factors according to the survey. However, the case company was aware of this and

also found it important that it was quick and easy for the customers to navigate and find

products on the website.

Overall, the survey points toward simplicity being seen as a crucial factor for creating value

for the customers. It must be easy for the customers to go through the purchase process,

everything from finding the products to making the payments. This is important no matter the

sales channel but was seen to increase of importance online.

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5.2.4 The changed expectations

The customers are setting new demands and have different expectations. This is not only seen

in the transition between physical to digital stores, but this is something that is changing on the

market overall. The internal interviewees mean that the difference between the B2B market

and the B2C market is decreasing in the way that the customers in B2B have the same mindset

and the same expectations as they have as a private consumer:

“We believe that the boundaries between B2B and B2C will disappear, especially when it

comes to expectations, ‘what I expect in service, how to be treated and speed’. My

expectations will be based on other purchases.”

“You expect to be able to order in the same way and get as much information at work as you

do as a consumer.”

This is something that is considered by the case company, and instead of focusing on B2C, the

CMO means that they like to see it as business-to-humans instead. There is a need to not only

look at the B2B market, but also the B2C market.

5.3 Dealing with customer feedback in the innovation process

As the interaction between the customers and the case company change when the purchase

process is online, so does the process of transferring the customers’ experience of the purchase

to the salespeople. This section presents how the feedback from customers and employees are

received and dealt with at the case company, which comes from the themes Identifying ideas

for innovation in Figure 6 and Ideas for innovation in Figure 7.

5.3.1 Giving and receiving feedback

Since it is the customers that should feel satisfied with the purchase it is important that they get

the opportunity to, and feel free to speak their mind. This is an opportunity for the selling

company to analyze what is good and what needs to be improved. According to the interviewed

customers, they are happy to give feedback as long as it is easy to do so and there is a possibility

to do it right away when encountering something that they have an opinion about:

“I am happy to tell if something is missing or if it is the wrong picture or something. You

know, I cannot write it on a paper and remember it before telling an in-house salesman. They

should have a ‘report error’-button so it is simple to report errors.”

All the internal interviewees mentioned that the salesforce play a vital role in receiving

feedback from the customers and understand the customers’ needs and requirements. They

have a large salesforce that operates in the physical stores where the feedback is received. The

physical stores are described as a meeting point where relations are a central part of the

purchase process as the salespeople and the customers get close to each other and can see

reactions more clearly:

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“We try to encourage [the sellers] to ‘stay close to the customers, understand what the

customers need, and tell us when you notice that several customers are talking about

something we do not provide today’, and we will work with business development to try to

meet it”.

“For the customers in the physical stores, it is still very much about relationships and local

business. From there, we often receive feedback that is good and bad straight in our faces

about changes, range of products, the behavior in the stores etc.”

The internal interviewees perceive that it is more difficult to capture the customers’ needs and

feedback in the digital stores and that there is a risk that a lot is missed out. As digital stores in

many ways become more anonymous, there is a risk that customers will not tell when they are

dissatisfied and leaves without any notice:

“The risk of digital sales is that the customers go elsewhere to buy their products without us

noticing it.”

In order to capture feedback from the customers in all sales channels, the case company has

decided to do surveys about the entire buying process, which online includes making an order

and receiving the goods. However, one of our interviewees perceived that the answers from the

surveys are usually overly positive and thought that the answers did not correspond to the real

experience of the customers. Moreover, according to the HEC, there is possible to give

feedback on the website today.

5.3.2 Processing the feedback

All ideas for innovation come from within the organization, sometimes from the central

functions, but most often from the salespeople. The case company finds it important to receive

feedback from the customers as a lot of the suggestions for improvements and ideas for

development indirectly comes from the customers via the salespeople who are in direct contact

with the customers and can spot trends:

“We also collect improvement proposals, which often comes from the salespeople who are

actually out meeting the customers.”

All the feedback that is collected is analyzed for further actions. First, the feedback is divided

based on if it is short-term or long-term. Suggestions that are short-term goes to the market

function where they are validated and prioritized, while the long-term suggestions are brought

to the innovation lab. All suggestions that come in are screened on a number of criteria, such

as how big the need is and if it can be found among several customer segments, if there is a

clear customer benefit and not only a benefit for the case company, etc. When the ideas have

been screened, they are further researched and tested with prototypes which may eventually be

tested on the customers.

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6 Discussion and analysis

This chapter aims to answer the research questions by discussing and analyzing the result

found in the interviews and link it to the literature found in the subject. The research questions

that will be answered are:

Q1. In what ways are critical customer values affected when B2B firms within the construction

industry move towards e-commerce?

Q2. How does the transition to e-commerce affect the front end of innovation?

6.1 How the value of service is affected by e-commerce

What can be seen in the study is that when going from a traditional physical store to a digital

store, the customers become more dependent that the service provided by the case company is

good. When it comes to purchases in the physical store, it is up to the customers to go to the

store and get the products while the most important factor for the selling company is that the

products that the customers need are available when the customers get there. In the digital store,

there is no possibility for the customers to see and feel the products, which makes the customers

more dependable on the case company. Also, the customers rely on the selling company to

deliver the products to them when they need it. Not receiving the products when expected can

have huge consequences for customers within B2B as they schedule their work and need to

have the products there in time. The delivery thereby seems to become the most crucial factor

of value for the customers, which goes along with what the Voss (2000) states about delivery

being a foundation of service, and Ulaga (2003) who sees delivery as an important value-driver.

The value of delivery primarily involves accuracy of the products and delivery on time, but to

some extent also, as the literature states, lead time and flexibility. As the customers become

more dependent on what the selling company is doing, communication also becomes more

crucial so that the customers can be updated on the status of the products and the delivery.

What is interesting in the results is that the reliability of fulfilling the expectations and the

feeling of security when making payments and leaving personal information did not seem to

be of more value in the digital stores than in the physical stores. This even though more of the

purchase process is left to the case company. The fact that trust and security was not seen as

very important do not go in line with what the literature states about trust becoming important

in e-commerce and that it even can be a hinder for people adopting e-commerce. This might be

because of the long and strong relationship that the customers have with the case company so

that the lack of security is not something that is considered that much. Moreover, with the

introduction of GDPR, there is a possibility that the customers now feel more secure of leaving

information online, not the least when it is information about the customers’ company and not

personal information. Neither was the reliability seen as one of the most important factors for

customer value, something that do not go along with the what has been stated by Zeithaml

(2000) and Kotler et al. (2012). However, reliability is something that is perceived as an

important part of for example on time delivery, accuracy of delivery and that the products are

in stock as reliability is about getting what is expected, which could have affected the result.

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Overall, when customers go online, they often feel more anonymous, but they also leave trails

of every move they make, something that can be useful when customizing the service as

mentioned by Rust and Lemon (2014). As Rust and Lemon (2014) further explains, the

expectations of personalized solutions have risen. What can be seen in this study is that the

customers want simplicity when searching for products. Using further recommendations based

on previous search results can make it easier for the customers when there is a wide range of

products to go through. At the same time, the customers do not like to feel imposed upon and

when the service is exaggerated. There is thereby a thin line between offering customized

service and being too intrusive.

6.2 How the value of personnel is affected by e-commerce

Before the e-commerce, when customers bought their products from physical stores, the

personal interaction was very important. Theron et al. (2008) states that effective

communication between sellers and buyers would strengthen the level of commitment between

partners and both Edvardsson (1988) and McLean (2017) demonstrates that if the customers

felt that they were ignored, they would not come back, so building lasting relationships where

the customer could trust and rely on the company they were buying from has been seen as vital.

This could also be seen in this research where one of the reasons that the interviewed customers

were buying from the case company was because they had a relation where reliability and trust

were high; they knew that they could find what they needed there, when they needed it.

Furthermore, as the case company goes to such great lengths to help their customers and have

such a close relationship with their customers, the customers are willing to forgive minor

inconveniences and help the case company fix these errors rather than leaving for another

distributor. Though, customers state that it should also be easy to report problems if they occur

as they often want to help but will not do so if it is too complicated.

According to Subramaniam and Shaw (2002), relationships and coordination between partners

are increased when going online. Our research agrees with this and we think it might be because

of the increased need for good communication between partners when the sales go online. We

found that communication is needed for both help and advisement but also when customers are

making purchases online, as more trust is put on the case company to present and deliver the

goods to the customer. When customers go online, they are not met by a physical person,

therefore the customers that we interviewed stated that it was important that the information

communicated on the webshop was easy to understand so that they could buy their products

without problems. Furthermore, research by Legett (2013; 2017) demonstrates that trends in

the B2C market points toward chat and chatbots becoming more common when contact occurs

between buyers and sellers, and our research indicate that the case company is introducing and

in some ways prefer this, but the customers have not yet reached that stage and rather prefer

communicating through phone or e-mail.

Nowadays, there is an increased demand for consultation and guidance and the customers

expect help fast and in a way that is customized to their specific needs according to Piccoli et

39

al. (2004). The case company is no exception which put a pressure on them to have knowledge

within many different areas, to be able to help all customers if they should need it. Though, the

customers that we interviewed stated that they thought they had more knowledge within their

areas than representatives from the company and therefore saw consultation as less important.

They rather thought that the help offered online could sometimes be too intrusive and stated

that help should always be available, but they wanted to be the ones to initiate the help.

6.3 How the value of time and energy is affected by e-commerce

From the interviews it was clear that time is something that customers on the B2B market value,

no matter sales channel. What takes time and energy are quite straightforward from the

literature review, where going to the store (if going to the physical store), finding information

about the product to buy and finding the products are some examples mentioned by Kim et al.

(2014), and these are factors which can be seen in the case company as well. When going to

the physical stores, the time and energy spent highly depends on the distance to the store, the

amount of other people in the store, and how easy it is to find the products in the store. When

it comes to finding the products in the store and finding information about the products though,

the personnel can help. On the contrary, the digital store relies more on the customer to find all

necessary information and find the products to buy. It thereby becomes crucial for the selling

company to have a website that is well structured, provide necessary product data and is fast.

The literature focuses on how e-commerce enables time savings and is more convenient when

compared to physical stores as the customers can, as mentioned by Ianole (2017) and Escobar-

Rodríguez and Bonsón-Fernández (2017), make the purchase from anywhere at any time. What

has been seen in this case study is that the time is affected in different ways depending on the

purpose with the purchase and the circumstances. Both physical stores and e-commerce can

mean time savings for the customers. This leads back to the question of whether the purchase

is planned or not. If the need is right away, e-commerce is not considered more convenient for

the customers, while it might be if the customers do not need the products the same day and

buying online then mean that the customer can make the purchase from anywhere without

having to go to a store. For this reason, it is mostly the larger companies that seem to find the

most value of making the purchases digitally in a question of saving time and has matured the

most in the area, so much that some are even forbidden to buy in physical stores. This also goes

along with what Punj (2012) says about the willingness to buy online in the B2C market, where

it is the higher income customers who are more inclined to buy online due to the time it saves.

In the case of B2B market, it partly seems to depend on the kind of project, but also resources

and digital maturity. However, important to highlight is that the case study has been done in

the construction industry, and the need to go to the store after visiting the workplace of the day

to know what is needed might be limited to the construction industry and not something that is

general for the B2B market.

So, the value of time and energy is important among B2B customers as they are working

towards a schedule. No matter the sales channel, among the most important factors for value

creation among customers are simplicity, i.e. easy to find the products and to go through the

40

whole purchase process. How the time and energy are affected by the change of sales channel

though can be considered to be both positive and negative depending on when the products are

to be used.

6.4 How e-commerce affects the front end of innovation

Since the customer values change when going from traditional physical stores to digital stores

there is a need to meet these new requirements through innovative solutions. The transition of

going from physical stores to digital stores also means changes that can affect the innovation

process. In this case, the salespeople and their close connection to the customers are an

important part of identifying new opportunities for innovations as they, by talking to the

customers, can identify common problems and trends. As the e-commerce mean that face-to-

face interaction is no longer possible, new ways to interact with the customers are needed. The

presented literature is highlighting the importance of using salespeople and their information

about the customer for innovation, as they according to Gordon et al. (1997) can be seen as the

voice of the customers and identify their problems and needs. However, the literature does not

include how the customers can be included when the store is online and there is no physical

contact with them on a daily basis.

Online, a lot of information can be gathered by analyzing the customers data and the traces

they leave when navigating on the website, which can be used to recognize patterns and trends.

Furthermore, it is rather easy to perform simple customer surveys at web sites and that way

combine customer behavior data with their own experience of the site. This CX data (customer

experience data) is, compared to the information gained in physical stores, very concrete and

all customers can be traced. CX data combined with sales data can for instance be used to

improve the customer experience with the target to increase online sales. It is also quite easy

to test new ideas by making changes and test that on real customers and how their behavior is

affected by the new ideas. However, managing and analyzing this kind of big data most

certainly requires resources which smaller companies might not have in their own organization

but that can be bought as services from specialist companies. Even though a lot of data can be

captured online, some information can only be captured with qualitative meetings with the

customers face-to-face which involves seeing and talking to the them. As mentioned by some

of the interviewees, some important information can thus be lost online.

Traditionally, B2B has, to a large extent, revolved around long and close contacts between

buyers and sellers. To some extent, salespeople need to be available online through for example

phone or chat and the customers can thereby be reached in this way. However, it has been stated

by the case company that the customers’ behavior is moving more towards the ones in the B2C

market as the customers have the same expectations as they have in their personal buying

situations as consumers. Moreover, as the customers are going online, they do not have the

same expectation of a personal interaction with any personnel, but rather they are satisfied with

being more independent. With this transition of having less contact with the customers, it is

harder to collect the customers’ feedback and use it as a way to identify new opportunities for

innovation. One alternative is to have a function where the customers can easily give feedback

41

directly. This needs to be simple and intuitive so that the customers are willing to use the

function. However, as a lot of information can be lost online, a customer panel can be used to

get a deeper understanding of the customers and use customer co-creation. This way, the

customers can actively provide insights and create solutions that they find valuable. By using

the customer information that exists, asking the customers questions in surveys and interviews,

involving them in the development, and involving them in evaluation of ideas, the customers

can be involved in a big part of the innovation process.

However, as seen in this research, all customers we interviewed had a more short-term view of

innovations. They looked at what they currently had and based new ideas on what already

existed. This goes in line with what is stated by Gordon et al. (1997) that most ideas presented

by the customers are related to problems with the current offering. While this may be helpful

for the company, it will likely not put them on the front of innovation and ahead of their

competitors. Based on this, the use of customers’ feedback can give good inputs for incremental

innovation but using other sources for innovation is necessary as well, especially if the contact

with the customers decreases.

For inspiration to more radical ideas, we suggest looking at social trends and get inspiration

and input from how other industries or companies targeting the B2C market solve their

problems. Other industries could have a different view on how to solve a problem because of

their different knowledge and backgrounds. This information can be transferred and combined

with what is already known and find novel opportunities and ideas.

42

7 Conclusions

This chapter will present the final conclusions from the research and how the research has

contributed to the area. Furthermore, limitations that has affected the study and suggestions

for further research will be presented.

7.1 Overall conclusions

The study shows that the different factors in customer value are affected in different ways when

the customers are moving from physical stores to digital stores. The value of the service

provided becomes more vital online in the way that service in the physical stores are, except

for having the wanted products available, more about being met by a good customer treatment

and being offered problem solving, while service online becomes crucial for even receiving the

products due to the delivery that needs to be good. In the meanwhile, the research indicates that

the personal contact between sellers and buyers have been seen as very important in physical

stores, but that this importance is diminishing online. Customers value the personal contact and

find it pleasant when buying in physical stores but at the same time they would not miss the

personal interactions when buying online. Customers going online have accepted that e-

commerce is more independent and do not find personal interactions as valuable. They only

state that it is important when they need help or recommendations and when that is the case,

they want it fast and easy. The case company has tried to personalize the help online, but at the

moment, customers think it is sometimes too intrusive which means that the help needs to be

more subtle yet personalized. Finally, no matter the sales channel, not wasting time and energy

is important and simplicity is among the most valuable factors. Hence, the value of minimizing

the time and energy costs do not decrease nor increase when going from physical stores to

digital stores.

The study has also showed that the front end of innovation is affected by the transition to e-

commerce in the way that identifying opportunities by using the customers’ feedback is limited

when there is less interaction with the customers. However, a lot of data about the customers

and their behavior can be extracted online by how they behave on the website which can be

used to better understand the customers and possible opportunities for improvements for the

customers. If information that only can be captured by talking to the customers is needed in the

innovation process, it could be useful to include them under other circumstances than solely

their purchase process, for instance by a customer panel. However, the study highlighted that

the customer often focuses on short-term and incremental opportunities for improvements.

7.2 Theoretical contribution

Our research has contributed to the existing literature by examining how the customer values

service, personnel and time and energy are affected by the e-commerce in a B2B context in a

collected context. Earlier research is mainly connected to a B2C context while we have focused

on B2B, bringing more clarity to how customer values are affected within a distributing

company, as well as from a construction industry point of view. Neither the distributor nor

43

construction point of views regarding digitalization and e-commerce has been a largely

researched topic in the literature. Moreover, the study did show some interesting results when

compared to the literature. One of them was how e-commerce is highlighted as convenient and

with this, saving time and energy, which was only true for certain types of customers in this

case where the construction industry was investigated. Another interesting conflict with the

literature is the increased importance of security online as our results shows that the value of

security did not change when purchasing online.

Furthermore, the literature has been scarce on how distributors work with innovation and the

innovation process within B2B, and how the e-commerce affects the front end of innovation.

We have seen that the salespeople and, through them, the customers, has been vital for the case

company in collecting ideas for innovation, but that there is a challenge in using this asset when

going digital.

Moreover, our research suggests that it is not enough to use only ideas from customers if a

company wishes to stay ahead of competition in the long run as the customers ideas are mainly

short-term. Therefore, a company that strives to stay ahead of competition needs to have other

inlets of innovative ideas, though the importance of the customers in the later stages of the

innovation process is not to be disregarded.

7.3 Limitations and future research

Even though the case company is active in several countries, a decision was made to only

include the Swedish market due to the fact that Stockholm, Sweden, has been the base for the

research, making it easier to interview customers and internal employees. Moreover, the thesis

was made during a limited time of a few months, constricting the time to prepare, conduct and

analyze the interviews. For this reason, only seven interviewees took part of the study, and

therefore more data needs to be collected for a more valid result. Therefore, we feel that the

results of this study should be seen as indications rather than definitive answers.

Another limitation was that it was decided to focus only on the construction industry due to the

lack of research made within this area. Furthermore, the fact that the construction industry is

an industry that is behind when it comes to digitalization but is just now beginning to show an

interest in becoming more digitized, made it even more interesting for us to analyze deeper.

The last limitation is that only SME (small and medium sized enterprise) customers have been

interviewed while information about larger customers have been provided by the case

company. Therefore, this thesis only includes the case company’s view on how larger

customers reasons, decides on and makes decisions.

A future topic for research could investigate how larger companies have been affected by the

digitalization and e-commerce as they are different from the SME companies in several ways.

Literature stated that customers want to feel that the purchases online is secure, but our study

did not comply with this. However, this might be a result of the long and trustful relationships

44

between the case company and the interviewed customers. Therefore, a study on how security

is affected by relationships between buyers and sellers could be of interest. It would also be

interesting to investigate how the rest of the innovation process is affected by digitalization

within the distribution and construction industries. Lastly, as seen in this research, the

salesforce is seen as a vital part in collecting new ideas for innovation. Therefore, a study on

how to make use of the salesforce in the best way when a company goes digital would be

interesting.

45

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i

Appendix A - Interview guide case company internal

Introduction

- We describe our thesis and what we do. Mention approximately how long the

interview will take.

- State that the answers will be anonymous, ask if there is something that cannot

be included in the thesis.

- Ask if it is okay if we record the interview.

- What role do you have in the company? What does it include?

- How long have you been working at this position? At the same company?

Digitalization/e-commerce at the case company

- How has the company adapted to the digitalization that has taken place,

especially e-commerce?

- Why did you complement your physical stores with a digital store?

- What is your strategy regarding the e-commerce?

- Have you noticed any difficulties from your side when implementing the e-

commerce strategy?

- Are there any differences in customer type between those who make digital

purchases and those who do not? (size, year in the industry etc.)

- Do the customers have other expectations now? Have they changed overall

(regardless of sales channel) or do you notice differences between sales channels?

Customer values

- How do you get to know your customers and their needs/requirements? Is there

a difference between digital sales and sales in a physical store? What works well

and what works less well, that you would like to change?

- How do you make use of the new needs or improvement suggestions that come

up? Is there a difference in physical store and digital sales?

- Do you think that the customers have relatively similar needs and requirements?

It not, how do you relate to these differences?

- How do you think your customers make decisions? What factors are those

decisions based on?

- What customer values do you think your customers prioritize?

- Have you noticed any differences in prioritized customer values then purchasing

in a physical store vs online? How have you noticed it? How do you handle these

differences?

- What does good service mean to you?

- What kind of service do you offer in physical store and what do you offer online?

ii

- What do your customer usually want help with? How does this differ in the

physical store vs online?

- How do you help your customers save time and energy?

- How do you want your customers to perceive you?

Closed questions

I believe that our business is digitalized:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Do not

agree at all

Totally

agree

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

I think our customers want continuous contact with sellers/company representative

when purchasing:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Do not

agree at all

Totally

agree

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

What do you think your customers usually need help with?

❏ Consultation on a product

❏ Help to place an order

❏ Received the wrong products

❏ Bought the wrong products

❏ Questions about delivery

❏ Other

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

Which communication tools do you prefer? Rank, where 1 is the most preferred option.

❏ Chat

❏ Phone

❏ Video call

❏ E-mail

❏ Other

iii

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

What do you think takes energy when shopping in a physical store? Rank, where 1 is

the most energy-intensive.

❏ Exhausting to get to the store

❏ Long queues to pay

❏ A lot of people/long time to get help

❏ Difficult to find products

❏ Difficult to find information about products

❏ Have to customize the work schedule to the store’s opening hours

❏ Other

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

What do you think takes energy when shopping online? Rank, where 1 is the most

energy-intensive.

❏ Slow website

❏ Difficult to navigate the website

❏ Few payment options/complicated to pay

❏ Difficult to receive help/information

❏ Uncertainty when the delivery will arrive

❏ Other

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

Which customer values do you think are the most important for customers when buying

in a physical store? Rank, where 1 is most important.

❏ Good delivery options (delivery time, ability to choose when and where the goods

should be delivered, ability to track delivery, price of delivery)

❏ Products are available in the closest store

❏ Advice (access to help, quick responses, adaptation to language and personal

needs)

❏ Simplicity (easy to find in store, easy to pay)

❏ Security (privacy, different payment options)

❏ Reliability (meets expectations)

❏ Relevant information (product descriptions, prices, stock status)

❏ Access to the latest products

❏ Other…………………………………………………………………………………....

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

iv

Which customer values do you think are the most important for customers when buying

online? Rank, where 1 is most important.

❏ Good delivery options (delivery time, ability to choose when and where the goods

should be delivered, ability to track delivery, price of delivery)

❏ Ability to change placed orders

❏ Advice (access to help, quick responses, adaptation to language and personal

needs)

❏ Simplicity (easy to find in store, easy to pay)

❏ Security (privacy, different payment options)

❏ Reliability (meets expectations)

❏ Relevant information (product descriptions, prices, stock status)

❏ Access to the latest products

❏ Other…………………………………………………………………………………....

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

v

Appendix B - Interview guide customers

Introduction

- We describe our thesis and what we do. Mention approximately how long the

interview will take.

- State that the answers will be anonymous, ask if there is something that can not

be included in the thesis.

- Ask if it is okay if we record the interview.

- Please describe your company, size and so on?

- What role do you have in the company?

- How long have you been working at this position? At the same company?

- Why do you shop at the case company?

- What is your relation with the case company? Long-lasting, close contact?

Shopping online vs in a physical store

- Describe your purchasing process, from you noticing a need for a product to

when you receive the product?

- When do you shop in a physical store and when do you shop online? Why?

- If you do not shop online, what is it that prevents you from doing so? What

would make you do it?

- How have your buying habits in terms of sales channels changed in recent years?

- Have you noticed any changes when purchasing online vs in physical store?

Communication (better/worse)/Time spent (more/less)/ Energy (more/less)

- Has the e-commerce changed your view of the case company? How?- What do

you think of the future? Do you think you will make more of the purchases

online in the future?

Expectations and customer value

- What do you expect from a good supplier? What is most important to you when

shopping?

- What does good service mean to you?

- How personal do you want the service to be? How do you think the case

company can be more personal to you? How do you think you can get the

personal interaction you want online?

- How do you think the e-commerce has affected the service?

- When buying in a physical store, what do you think works well?

- When buying in a physical store, what do you think works less well/what can be

better?

- When buying in a online, what do you think works well?

- When buying in a online, what do you think works less well/what can be better?

- How has the e-commerce affected the time you spend on purchasing?

- What do you think takes up a lot of energy when purchasing in a physical store?

- What do you think takes up a lot of energy when purchasing online?

vi

- What has surprised you when buying online?

Closed questions

I believe that our business is digitalized:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Do not

agree at all

Totally

agree

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

I want continuous contact with sellers/company representative when purchasing:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Do not

agree at all

Totally

agree

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

Have you ever needed to contact a seller/support regarding:

❏ Consultation on a product

❏ Help to place an order

❏ Received the wrong products

❏ Bought the wrong products

❏ Questions about delivery

❏ Other

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

Does the contact with the case company differentiate depending on what kind of

purchases/products you want to buy?

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

Which communication tools do you prefer? Rank, where 1 is the most preferred option.

❏ Chat

❏ Phone

❏ Video call

vii

❏ E-mail

❏ Other

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

What do you think takes energy when shopping in a physical store? Rank, where 1 is

the most energy-intensive.

❏ Exhausting to get to the store

❏ Long queues to pay

❏ A lot of people/long time to get help

❏ Difficult to find products

❏ Difficult to find information about products

❏ Have to customize the work schedule to the store’s opening hours

❏ Other

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

What do you think takes energy when shopping online? Rank, where 1 is the most

energy-intensive.

❏ Slow website

❏ Difficult to navigate the website

❏ Few payment options/complicated to pay

❏ Difficult to receive help/information

❏ Uncertainty when the delivery will arrive

❏ Other

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

Which customer values do you think are the most important when buying in a physical

store? Rank, where 1 is most important.

❏ Good delivery options (delivery time, ability to choose when and where the goods

should be delivered, ability to track delivery, price of delivery)

❏ Products are available in the closest store

❏ Advice (access to help, quick responses, adaptation to language and personal

needs)

❏ Simplicity (easy to find in store, easy to pay)

❏ Security (privacy, different payment options)

❏ Reliability (meets expectations)

❏ Relevant information (product descriptions, prices, stock status)

❏ Access to the latest products

❏ Other…………………………………………………………………………………....

viii

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

Which customer values do you think are the most important when buying online? Rank,

where 1 is most important.

❏ Good delivery options (delivery time, ability to choose when and where the goods

should be delivered, ability to track delivery, price of delivery)

❏ Ability to change placed orders

❏ Advice (access to help, quick responses, adaptation to language and personal

needs)

❏ Simplicity (easy to find in store, easy to pay)

❏ Security (privacy, different payment options)

❏ Reliability (meets expectations)

❏ Relevant information (product descriptions, prices, stock status)

❏ Access to the latest products

❏ Other…………………………………………………………………………………....

Comment:....................................................................................................................................

......................................................................................................................................................

TRITA -ITM-EX 2019:503

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