Shopbots, Powershopping, Powersales: New Forms of Intermediation in E-Commerce - An Overview -

With the advent and proliferation of the Internet many aspects of business and market activities are changing. New forms of intermediation also called cybermediaries are becoming increasingly important as a coordinator of interaction between buyers and sellers in the electronic market environment. Especially the overwhelming abundance of information offered by the Internet promotes the development of new intermediarie like malls, shopbots, virtual resellers etc. This paper provides a detailed overview of different new forms of cybermediation and illustrates their influence on consumer choice, firm pricing and product differentiation strategies.comparison shopping, cybermediaries, e-commerce, shopbots

Contextual advertising

Contextual advertising entails the display of relevant ads based on the content that consumers view, exploiting the potential that consumers' content preferences are indicative of their product preferences. This paper studies the strategic aspects of such advertising, considering an intermediary who has access to a content base, sells advertising space to advertisers who compete in the product market, and provides the targeting technology. The results show that contextual targeting impacts advertiser profit in two ways: First, advertising through relevant content topics helps advertisers reach consumers with a strong preference for their product. Second, heterogeneity in consumers' content preferences can be leveraged to reduce product market competition, especially when competition is intense. The intermediary has incentives to strategically design its targeting technology, sometimes at the cost of the advertisers. When product market competition is moderate, the intermediary offers accurate targeting such that the consumers see the most relevant ads. When competition is high, the intermediary lowers the targeting accuracy such that the consumers see less relevant ads. Doing so intensifies competition and encourages advertisers to bid for multiple content topics in order to prevent their competitors from reaching consumers. In some cases, this may lead to an asymmetric equilibrium where one advertiser bids high even for the content topic that is more relevant to its competitor. © 2012 INFORMS

Selling Tourism Products through the Opaque Channels

International audienceThis paper analyses the properties of the advanced Opaque booking systems used by online travel agencies in conjunction with their traditional transparent booking system. In section 2 an updated literature review is presented. This review underlines the interest and the specificities of Opaque goods in the Tourism Industry. It also characterises properties of the Name-Your-Own-Price channel introduced by Priceline and the Opaque channel developed by Hotwire. Then, in section 3, the possibility of joint-implementation of more than one opaque booking system by an online intermediary is discussed. Finally, in section 4, intuitions and preliminary results are presented

Sarkar, Butler & Steinfield (1995) “Intermediaries and Cybermediaries” Revisited: A Review and Identification of Future Research Directions for Intermediaries in Electronic Markets

Intermediation in markets is a phenomenon that has been studied by many researchers from a variety of different theoretical angles. With the introduction and diffusion of the Internet in everyday life, broad predictions were made that called for disintermediation enabled by direct Internet linkages between suppliers and buyers and lower transaction costs. The often-cited paper by Sarkar, Butler and Steinfield (1995) challenges this prediction. By comparing Internet effects on transaction costs with the cost situation ex ante, the paper explains that both direct sales or cybermediated sales are possible outcomes. In this paper we confront key assumptions of the Sarkar et al. paper with recent developments in the tourism market. We find that in the tourism market a multitude of direct and indirect distribution channels exist next to each other. Multi-level distribution channels often including several cybermediaries have been built, resulting in a complex market topology. We also see a large variety of intermediary roles, resulting from highly specialized and highly integrated cybermediary business models. Furthermore the model of Sarkar et al. fails to deliver an explanation for the on-going dynamics in the tourism market in terms of shifts towards more or less intermediaries and the emergence of new intermediary-like business models. By taking these trends into account we are able to identify relevant future research directions in order to extend our understanding of the phenomenon of electronic intermediaries in markets

A typology of technology market intermediaries

Technology Market Intermediaries (TMI) are currently emerging on the markets for technologies attempting to realize business opportunities and facilitate the technology and IP transactions supporting firms and other markets actors (e.g. universities). They aim to support open innovation, respectively facilitate more economically technology and particularly IP transactions. However, our understanding of TMIs and their roles needs to be considered incomplete. In this paper I provide evidence on the growing number of TMIs and derived a conceptual basis for a further understanding of TMIs. The inherent difficulties of intellectual property monetization present a challenge for technology based enterprises and business opportunities for IP firms. Following a literature review, I develop a typology for TMIs. Having carried out a review of the literature I compiled a mix of primary and secondary data on about 70 TMIs. Applying the 'nine business model building blocks' from Osterwalder (2004) I identify 12 different TMI types which I then consolidate into six TMI archetypes using the framework for 'business models archetypes' of Herman and Malone (2003). --typology,type,Technology Market Intermediaries

PRO-SOCIAL CONSUMER AND FIRM BEHAVIOR IN IMPERFECTLY COMPETITIVE REGIONAL AGRICULTURAL MARKETS

In this dissertation, I combine field research, econometric methods, and economic theory to analyze a market in which both firms’ and consumers’ choices are motivated by social preferences. This work contributes to the fields of behavioral economics, industrial organization, and local food systems economics. The dissertation expands the growing literature on social preferences to incorporate firms’ choices that are motivated by utility maximizing objectives in an environment that allows endogenous equilibrium prices and quantities. Firms with social preferences operate in a competitive environment in which they may face downstream market power. In particular, the research focuses on intermediated Farm to School markets for local food in which producers’ marketing decisions may be influenced by both market structure and the pro-social motivations embedded in local food markets

The Effects of E-commerce on the Structure of Intermediation

The paper questions the notion that the diffusion of electronic commerce will lead to disintermediation. Rather than interpreting intermediation as a single service it is pointed out that intermediaries can provide a number of services. The analysis based on the New Institutional Economics, Market Microstructure Theory, and Information Economics shows that the three intermediation services studied are, generally, not under threat by the diffusion of electronic commerce. The overall effects on intermediation depend on the relevance of these services relative to others (e.g. order processing) which are supposed to become obsolete.B2C eCommerce, intermediation, new institutional economics

International distribution channel strategies for service products: Case study research on Internet of Things enabled innovative B2B services

This master’s thesis research examines how manufacturing companies in the high-technology industries have crafted their distribution strategies, why the decisions have been made and how the channels are evolving. The main focus of this research is to study how innovative Internet of Things enabled (remote condition monitoring) service products are distributed. The research studies the topic by relating distribution literature to three different theoretical areas, namely, value in relationships, product-technology maturity and market diversity. These approaches were chosen because of their ability to explain dynamism, longitudinal development, and transitions within the channels. The research is a multiple case study that utilizes interviews as a main source of data. The qualitative research pursues to produce knowledge about service product distribution channels. The researcher seeks to investigate which factors affect distribution of remote condition monitoring service products and to reveal contingencies. There were four cases studied as the researcher pursued case comparison and thus, to produce generalization. The study results suggest that the strategies are either direct or dual distribution strategies at introduction phase and then they develop into more cooperative hybrid channels or continue with dual strategy. Value in relationships have effect on dual and hybrid distribution decisions as well as type, intensity and coverage of distribution, but also relates to standardization of distribution strategy. Service product-technology maturity affects channel development related aspects and which channels can be exploited. Market diversity explains utilizing multiple channels in distribution as well as adaptation of strategy. When more markets are penetrated, adaptation pressure increases. When this kind of a service product is sold a lot of value has to be proposed and security related aspects must be addressed in the sales situation through direct interaction. Thus, proactive and competent sales people are important factors for success.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Technology market intermediaries to facilitate external technology exploitation: The case of IP auctions

Recently the phenomena of external technology exploitation (ETE) has started to attract attention from scholars, businesses and politicians likewise alongside with a growth of the markets for technology. However, the markets for technology are still characterized by inhibiting obstacles that lead to high transaction costs, thus prohibit efficient transactions and result in market failure. Although, on the one hand the presence of obstacles lead to high transaction costs, the large market potential on the other hand provides incentives for technology market intermediaries (TMI) to develop new exploitation models to facilitate ETE transactions by reducing transaction costs. Throughout this paper we address the general research question of whether and how new exploitation models can actually facilitate ETE. To address this question, in a first step we generate insights into TMIs acting on the markets for technology and derived a conceptual basis for a further understanding of TMIs. Having carried out a detailed review of the literature, we develop a theory based typology for six TMI archetypes. Throughout this exercise we gain insights into the variety of different functions TMIs have on the markets for technology and various new ways how TMIs try to facilitate ETE transactions. Throughout the second part of this paper, we focus on IP auctions as one particular business model of the archetype “IP Broker”. We investigate this “young” business model presenting first insights into two qualitative studies. In a first step we derive a generic IP auction process based on a qualitative, empirical analysis of IP auction processes. We then translate these results into a theory based process view and derive a generic IP auction process as a specific type of an ETE process. Having thus generated a close understanding of the transaction process, we presented results from four cases of successful transactions, i.e. where patents were sold for particular high prices from two SMEs and two MNCs. The case studies are analyzed according to four main aspects including characteristics of the companies that exploited patented technologies (including motives and selection processes), the patented technology as such, the organization of the transaction and the companies’ perceptions regarding the success of the transactions. --

Setting Prices on Priceline

Priceline is best known for its name-your-own-price format, in which consumers bid for services but not for service providers. Because Priceline serves as an opaque selling mechanism, it attracts price-conscious consumers. Sellers also benefit because they can price into multiple market segments without worrying that they are diluting revenue they might receive from customers who are willing to use conventional selling channels and pay more. A firm that releases its inventory to Priceline must manage the trade-off of pricing its inventory too low (and forgoing revenue) versus pricing it too high and forgoing a sale. In this paper, we outline the mechanism that Priceline uses to determine if customer bids are successful and, given this mechanism, establishes optimal prices and inventory allocations for Kimpton Hotels