Why universities do not have web shops?

Some time ago I was wondering why the large Finnish retail shops like the S-group, Kesko and Stockmann do not have a web presence, why they do not have a web shop.  Now, a few years later, all have established some sort of web presence (e.g. http://www.kesko.fi/fi/Kaupat-ja-palvelut/K-ryhman-kaupat/verkkokaupat/  and http://www.s-kanava.fi/web/vk/en/asiakasomistajalle). The latest is the S-group and you can see their web shop advertisements when visiting the local Prisma supermarket.  

The reason for the rush into establishing a web shop and a web presence is simple: customers are on-line and ready to buy. Not having a web presence means a sure risk of losing market share.

The retail shops were late in establishing their web shops because their business logic was built around the local community and on the logic of securing the best physical presence, in practice an intersection of major roads, to build a physical store. The retail shops had focused on physical intersections and forgotten the virtual intersections. Now they are learning how to conduct an online business and they are learning that underlying business principles and structures will be questioned by the customer. The customer drives their business.

In a sense universities are similar to retail shops. Universities are built around the local community to serve the knowledge needs of the local population. Education in Finland is free. It is not the customer – the student – who brings in the money. It is the government who pays for the tuition. In this sense Universities are different to retail shops. However Universities should pay attention and note that students are online and that they are also learning online. The Finnish retail stores were late going online. The Finnish universities will be slower. Hopefully they will not be too late in creating an online presence.

Internet i.e. online business is different to physical business. Internet based business models have four interesting characteristics: search engines are key, tools are given to the user to enable interaction, one should focus on building a community and the business model is scalable.

An online university could be compared to the hotels.com application. It is easy to find a hotel room anywhere in the world. It should be as easy to search for an online course starting within a single university and then build to leverage interuniversity relationships. One should give the students tools to openly comment and recommend the course to other students. Why not, while at it, also give the alumni and industry members interactive Internet based tools to comment and suggest content and areas of future development for the course.  In Finland tax payers are paying for the tuition. Following the principles of open data, tax payer financed content should be available to all – and not just the students in class. Like in many Internet business models, the lectures could be open to all in the online community and personal (possibly also online) feedback plus discussion, course grading’s, certificates etc. to those who have paid for the course or are enrolled as students.

It is interesting that the Internet was born in university related research environments, but the universities are among the last to notice the Internet´s potential in changing their business model and their governance structures.