Abstract

The presence on the Internet of a brand that approaches the market via vertical marketing systems such as franchising, offers many opportunities of business. In fact an affiliating enterprise has the possibility to approach both the end user and the "family" of franchisees, by providing services to both. Information, relationships and the possibility of on-line purchasing for the users, and information, training, sales and procurement support to the franchisees. The paper discusses these elements and provides the basis to analyze and collect information about a multi-sector sample of 305 international franchisor websites. The study also aims to evaluate the type of website customer orientation approach adopted by the franchisors examined.