Web Application Meets Brick And Mortar

What Does Web Application Meets Brick And Mortar Mean?

Web application meets brick and mortar (WAMBAM) is a business model in which an offline business (bricks and mortar) uses online marketing to expand its business reach, usually through a website, either with e-commerce or not, hence the name. The business may also integrate mobile apps and telephone ordering as well as physical and online product catalogs.

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Web application meets brick and mortar is also known as bricks and clicks.

Techopedia Explains Web Application Meets Brick And Mortar

Web application meets brick and mortar essentially refers to the initiative that retailers are taking online. The business model is believed to have originated with Pizza Hut, as it was the first to implement the ability to order products (pizza) through the internet to be delivered by the nearest physical branch.

The business model had its big break around the late 1990s and early 2000s when retail giants such as Walmart started websites that allowed customers to browse and buy the same goods they could find in the physical stores without leaving their own homes. Customers could then check the availability of products, and some stores even allowed orders to be placed online and packaged by the staff so that customers could pick them up at the physical store or, alternatively, have the order delivered to their house.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…