Selling fragrances on the Internet: an e-commerce negotiation

The genesis of a project is sometimes very simple – a discussion between Christophe Roquilly (EDHEC School of Management) and Abdul Paliwala (Warwick Law School) at the 2000 BILETA Conference and SubTech 2000 led to a joint e-learning project. In this article from the Autumn 2001 issue of Directions Christophe outlines the process.

Two major reasons were identified for launching our project. The first was related to both schools, which have a difference and a common point. One is a very well known law school, with strong experience in the use of substantive technologies in legal education. The other is a school of management with a strong legal sciences department and some experience in e-learning. The second reason was related to the international and intercultural aspects; in other words, we found it very interesting and challenging to involve students from both France and the UK in the same project.

In October 2000 we decided to develop a case study bringing together students from the LLM in International Economic Law at Warwick (directed by Andrew Clark) and the Business Law Programme of EDHEC School of Management in France (directed by Christophe Roquilly). In both schools students worked on the project on a voluntary basis.

There is no case study without a subject! We agreed to choose a subject that was logical for a distance case study and recent from a legal perspective. The content we came up with was to negotiate and elaborate a distribution contract over the Internet in the sector of fine fragrances.

The Warwick team played the role of a British retailer, best known for its physical points of sale. The EDHEC team played the role of a French producer of fine fragrances, who had decided to develop the distribution of its products over the Internet. So there was clearly not a conflict situation between the two protagonists. It was essential for each team to negotiate on a fair basis with the aim of achieving a final draft of the contract.

In November each team received two documents. The first document was the same for each team: information about both companies. The second document was specific to each team: team assignments.

A basic calendar was also distributed, to help the teams to plan each step of the case study.

• contact the other team and develop precise objectives
• exchange some information to identify the major issues for each company
• draft a letter of intent
• exchange some comments and remarks about the letter of intent
• negotiate the essential points of the contract by videoconference
• draft a contract proposal (key issues)
• present the final contract and&sign it!

Teams exchanged information, proposals and comments by e-mail, with the final stage of the negotiations taking place by videoconference.

Student responses to the project indicated a high rate of satisfaction, with no student indicating dissatisfaction on any issue in otherwise constructive feedback. For staff it also proved to be a stimulating teaching exercise. Language barriers were transcended, even though matters were not exactly even, with English being the medium of communication and the Warwick team including a French spy. While fuller details await our write-up of the project, the following extracts from student feedback from both sides of the channel indicate the nature of student responses:

• original and quite exciting way of learning a wide range of skills and their shortcomings
• the project is realistic and gives experience that is valuable, since it is almost real. It represents the upgrading of case study: interactive study, and is a worthy complement to traditional teaching.

It is intended to repeat, improve and broaden the exercise during the coming year.

Last Modified: 9 July 2010