Industry:Evaluate the impact E-commerce and the internet on the retail industry in the past 5 years. Specific Company: Kohl's Department Stores (KSS). How has the introduction of e-commerce impacted...

The e-commerce business is characterized by large volumes of transactions, small
value of individual orders, odd place of delivery, speed in internal movement, wider
product portfolio, and a large number of customer spread over a wide geographical
area. Manual operations have no scope in e-commerce logistics operations. The
component of logistics, such as order processing, transportation, inventory
management, packaging, and delivery require close coordination using IT solutions.
Since its first public offering, Kohl’s Corporation has shown steady growth and
strong profits and much of that is a result of exclusive and private brands, ability to
embrace technological changes and carefully adjusting its business model to changing
customer expectations.
The launching of Kohls.com in 2001 has resulted in steady sales growth in the e-
commerce portion of the company. To support the internet sales, a 940,000 square foot
distribution centre was opened in 2001 and a second one was opened in 2010. As
internet sales continued to increase to more than 50% of its previous year’s sales, a third...