Click-and-motor

When the Dells and Amazons burst into the online shopping scene, there was all this talk of what's the best business model and how will the traditional brick-and-mortar companies compete and survive against their nimble online counterparts. The grudging response from the brick-and-mortar companies was to spring up websites as a marketing tool or, going a step further, allow purchase online for a store pickup. This was referred to as click-and-mortar. This survives even to this date, but has just added a new unsuspecting entrant. The Tata Nano.

Tata had indicated that the volumes at which Nano is expected to sell would require them to be inventive about their channel strategy. True to that promise, Nano can not only be bought from thousands of SBI outlets, but you can just as well place an order online. Of course, you wouldn't expect a courier dropping your car at your doorstep in a few days (at least not yet). So, you still have to visit your nearest dealer to pick up the car. As long as dealers are given a cut, they are happy serving as the last mile in the car purchase.

Clearly, this is no different from click-and-mortar. Only that, in this case, you could call it click-and-motor!