Brick and mortar (B&M) refers to a company that possesses a building or store for operations[1]. The name is a metonym Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. For instance, "Washington", as the capital of the United States, can be used as a metonym (an instance of metonymy) for its government derived from the traditional building materials associated with physical buildings – bricks and mortar Mortar is a workable paste used to bind construction blocks together and fill the gaps between them. The blocks may be stone, brick, cinder blocks, etc. Mortar becomes hard when it sets, resulting in a rigid aggregate structure. Modern mortars are typically made from a mixture of sand, a binder such as cement or lime, and water. Mortar can also be – in contrast with online stores, which have no physical presence.
In the jargon of eCommerce Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, or e-business consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. The use of commerce is conducted in, brick and mortar businesses are companies that have a physical presence — a physical store — and offer face-to-face consumer experiences. This term is usually used to contrast with a transitory business or an internet-only presence, such as an online shop Online shopping is the process whereby consumers directly buy goods, services etc. from a seller interactively in real-time without an intermediary service over the Internet. If an intermediary service is present the process is called electronic commerce. An online shop, eshop, e-store, internet shop, webshop, webstore, online store, or virtual. An example would be the movie-rental shop Blockbuster Video Blockbuster Inc. is an American-based chain of DVD, Blu-ray, and video game rental stores. As of January 3, 2010, there are over 6,500 Blockbuster stores in the U.S. and 17 countries worldwide. It is headquartered in the Renaissance Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas, which has physical stores and is in competition with the newer online rental services offered by Netflix Netflix, Inc., often just Netflix, is a company that offers online flat rate DVD and Blu-ray Disc rental-by-mail and video streaming in the United States. In this sense, the term is also a retronym A retronym is a new name for an object or concept to differentiate the original form or version of it from a more recent form or version. The original name is most often augmented with an adjective to account for later developments of the object or concept itself. Much retronymy is driven by advances in technology in that all stores had a physical presence before the advent of the Internet, making such a term unnecessary. A comparable term in the United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[note 7] is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land is High Street High Street, or the High Street, is a metonym for the generic name of the primary business street of towns or cities, especially in the United Kingdom. It is usually a focal point for shops and retailers in city centres, and is most often used in reference to retailing shops, although the phrase brick(s) and mortar business is also used.
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Categories: Retailing | Business terms Categories: Business | Economics terminology | Terminology | Misnomers |
