The Impact of Internet on Conventional Marketing Channels in Iran: Case study: Food Products in Iran

Sammanfattning: Due to the rapid development of technology over the past decade, business volatile is imperative; competitive business model based on electronic business practices is devolving and the centre of e-business model focuses on changing the practice of marketing. Also, Information technology has fundamentally changed the entity of marketing.
Nonetheless, E-commerce furnishes opportunities to business marketers including decreased costs and access to new market sections. It provides constant worldwide data and creates potentially distinctive challenges. Since companies use e-commerce, channel conflict maybe significantly important. Although multiple channels enable firms to attract customers in various market segments, they also exacerbate many challenges such as channel conflict, pricing policy for different channels and distribution strategies. So by the increase of sales channels, economic assessment of different distribution strategies is essential to firms.
Based on the research study stated in chapter one, the aim of this study is to present the manner by which a distributer company`s managers can recognize channel conflict and the measures to reduce the bad effects of channel conflict.
To obtain the main method of data collection in this research, descriptive and qualitative approaches were selected on the basis of interviews (the conducted interviews were face-to-face and in-depth). A case study was also carried out in addition.
The two companies under observation in this research are: a) (') ‘Chika Company’ and b) ‘Etka Chain Stores’. In both firms various access distribution channels and online strategies were used.
The study clearly indicated that the managers of these companies are quite aware of the channel conflict issue. Numerous conflicts by the Internet were also discovered. In each company well-functioning strategies were used for the prevention and decrease of the bad effects of channel conflict. These strategies varied due to companies’ conditions variation.
(') ChikaCompany exports its products.