Internet for franchising: current use and areas of improvement. Results of an empirical research

The internet provides numerous business opportunities to brands approaching the market with vertical marketing systems. In franchising networks, the internet offers the affiliating enterprise (franchisor) the possibility to approach the end user and the 'community' of franchisees by providing services to both - information, relationships and the possibility of online purchasing to the former, and information, training, sales and procurement support to the latter. This paper explores the impact of the internet on franchising with the objective of discovering how franchisors use their web sites. Results are presented from a preliminary study on a multi-sector and multi-national sample of 305 franchisor websites, illustrating the content and features available online . A further aim of the study is to evaluate the customer orientation adopted by franchisors in their websites and to compare online behaviors with other economic sectors analyzed, using the same methodology. The results of the study should help to significantly inform debate on this subject and serve as a starting point for future research on the impact of the internet on franchising growth strategies.