The brick-and-mortar business model refers to the physical existence of an organization in a building. It enables one-on-one interaction between customers and retailers. It constitutes either one outlet or several branches. Customarily, this model only accepts checks, credit cards, and cash for purchase (Wirtz et al., 2016). Brick-and-mortar stores mainly embrace traditional advertisement forms to market, namely billboards, newspapers, radio, and television commercials.
The fact that customer service exists in the brick-and-mortar model allows customers to have a personalized experience when they have questions. Consequently, the instant gratification that customers crave is fulfilled, working to their advantage. However, warehousing of inventory, labor, property taxes, and rent are just a few operating expenses incurred with this model.
E-commerce involves buying and selling products on the Internet by employing websites and virtual shopping carts. Orders are remotely entered, and customers receive the goods via the mail later. Sale transactions here are remotely exchanged, with PayPal being a case in point. E-commerce has more payment methods (Laudon & Traver, 2016).
Therefore, they enjoy Omni-channel flexibility, where they advertise on social media, get in touch with their customers through the phone, and use mobile applications to aid shoppers in discovering goods and services.
As it operates online, digital advertising and social media are practical and common forms of marketing. This model also tends to have a lot of stock in the warehouses as opposed to small brick-and-mortar retailers with limited space.
Unfortunately, clients would instead abandon their carts if they have to wait or search for a response if they have questions (Laudon & Traver, 2016).
Despite revenue realization during initial growth periods, competition, expensive shipping, and return expenses, among other factors, reduce profitability in the long run.
Business Model
E-business is a commercial process that involves sharing online information about products bought and sold (Rust & Kannan, 2016). It is a superset of e-commerce, procuring goods, educating customers, and searching for suppliers.
CRMs and ERPs connect various business processes. Furthermore, it covers internal methods such as product development, inventory management, and risk management.
It involves using an intranet, extranet or the Internet, managing logistics and surveying the market. In addition to business-to-business transactions, it includes pre-sale and post-sales efforts.
For a brick-and-mortar model, a sure way of keeping the customer’s data safe is to pay fixed costs such as rent and monthly charges for security alarm services. As evident in the name, fixed costs stay the same no matter what operation the business is undergoing. Sensitive personal data in this setting can be locked up in a safe, either at home or at work, which only authorized personnel can access (Rust & Kannan, 2016).
This measure ensures the information is secure from roommates and workers. If the company has to share information about a client, it will inquire about its need, safeguarding, and the consequences of not giving out the information.
The company can also shred receipts, forms, statements, checks, cards, statements, and other documents that hold clients’ no longer needed information. New checks will not be mailed at home unless secure mailboxes with locks exist.
E-commerce
For a secure environment in e-commerce, outgoing mail must be taken to the post office or the post office collection boxes. The company is also to train employees to be suspicious of emails containing attachments and report unusual ones to IT (Laudon & Traver, 2016).
If another company that has an account with the company asks for personal information, one calls their customer service number to confirm their request. Before disposing of a computer, wipe utility software is used to overwrite the hard drive.
Transferring information to the new device is only right when changing mobile devices. Utilizing encryption software to scramble what is sent over the internet is recommendable. Ultimately, the company needs strong passwords using numbers and letters (Laudon & Traver, 2016).
Encryption is sufficient for an e-business to allow access by the sender and intended recipients. Digital signatures confirm the sender’s identity. Digital certificates authenticate these signatures that a certificate authority has digitally signed (Wirtz et al., 2016).
Certification depends on the certifying authority and level of certification. Installation of firewall, anti-spyware, and antivirus is good practice. The employees are always to log off when they finish working. At the same time, the feature that saves usernames and passwords is deactivated so that it becomes hard to get personal information in case a company’s laptop is stolen.
The medium-sized grocery is to undergo global expansion, bearing in mind that security increases and IT assets are protected. A model that enforces the CIA triad is paramount for the success of this objective (Wirtz et al., 2016).
The model should be capable of controlling access, whether in transit or storage. For this to happen, a system configuration is put in place. This arrangement dictates the devices and settings that run the computer.
Brick And Mortar
The brick-and-mortar model is simple and incapable of that function, so it gets less consideration than the other two models. An upgrade of the same is necessary. As the store expands globally, millions of shoppers will start flooding the website more often to avoid queues associated with a brick-and-mortar model.
Expenditure on developing web hosting is necessary to cater to busy shoppers who do not have time to visit the physical store (Wirtz et al., 2016). Besides, the products in the shop’s physical location tend to be expensive due to the constant fixed costs.
Prospects at all times care for the price. E-commerce and e-business do not have to care for do not pay for salespeople and high-end retail stores, putting them in a better position.
The two models only spend a lot on Web 2.0 purposes on their sites. Furthermore, online stores order goods from many dispersed warehouses, besides having a wider stock availability.
The model ensures that the right people can change the content. E-commerce deals with commercial transactions, while e-business conducts business (Wirtz et al., 2016).
When Dell and Amazon maintain business processes such as email marketing and customer support, it is an e-business affair, while buying a flash disk from Amazon falls under e-commerce. It is clear that with e-business, the company has more duties and arguably better security models. This event gives e-business an upper hand.
Finally, as much as the model ensures that the company’s data is free from hackers, the owners should be able to access the information when they want. Having standby facilities, bandwidth and data backup, and standby facilities is just as necessary (Rust & Kannan, 2016).
E-commerce uses ICT to enable activities to enable business, while e-business is business using the internet’s help. E-business, therefore, appeals as an interactive environment where managers easily access their data, making it the best candidate for the global expansion of the store with top-notch security.


