Electronic markets (or electronic marketplaces) are information systems (IS) which are used by multiple separate organizational entities within one or among multiple tiers in economic value chains. In analogy to the market concept which can be viewed from a macroeconomic (describing relationships among actors in an economic systems, e.g. a monopoly) as well as from a microeconomic (describing different allocation mechanisms, e.g. public auctions of telephone frequencies) perspective, electronic markets denote networked forms of business with many possible configurations:
First, the topology of electronic markets may be centralized or decentralized in nature. Centralized electronic markets are hubs which often provide services to their participants. Decentralized settings involve sequential relationships within value chains which often are found when electronic messages are exchanged directly between businesses (electronic data interchange, EDI).
Second, the services provided by electronic markets may serve infrastructural or allocation purposes. Among the infrastructure services are routing, messaging, identification and partner directories whereas allocation services enable pricing process which in turn may be static or dynamic in nature. Typical implementations are catalogs, exchanges and auctions.
Third, the relationships of actors involved in electronic markets may be stable or atomistic in nature. The former usually refers to classical supply chains where business collaborate during a longer period of time. In the latter case, the transaction partners are only stable for a single transaction. This is usually to be found in auction and other exchange settings.
This leads to two definitions: In a narrow sense Electronic Markets are mainly conceived as allocation platforms with dynamic price discovery mechanisms involving atomistic relationships. Popular examples originate from the financial and energy industries. In a broader sense, price discovery is not critical for electronic markets. This covers all forms of electronic collaboration between organizations and consumer as well as vice versa.
Electronic markets are attributed important impacts on business efficiencies. From an industry perspective, transaction cost economics were used to illustrate the relationship between electronic markets and electronic hierarchies. While the former are in line with the narrow electronic markets definition, the latter are also included in the broader definition. This may be explained since in reality electronic markets have emerged as platforms which combine several modes of governance or types of coordination mechanisms. These “all-in-one-markets” link the possibility of competitive bidding for price discovery with the advantages of a predictable relationship to encourage relationship specific investments (non-contractible issues) and functionalities for closer collaboration. This perspective shows that it is important to distinguish between the market platform itself which creates an infrastructure between multiple parties and the coordination mechanisms operated on this platform which might be market-like or hierarchical in nature.
E-commerce refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. E-commerce is the largest sector of the electronics industry and is in turn driven by the technological advances of the semiconductor industry.
Disintermediation is the removal of intermediaries in economics from a supply chain, or "cutting out the middlemen" in connection with a transaction or a series of transactions. Instead of going through traditional distribution channels, which had some type of intermediary, companies may now deal with customers directly, for example via the Internet.
A Dutch auction is one of several similar types of auctions for buying or selling goods. Most commonly, it means an auction in which the auctioneer begins with a high asking price in the case of selling, and lowers it until some participant accepts the price, or it reaches a predetermined reserve price. This type of price auction is most commonly used for goods that are required to be sold quickly such as flowers, fresh produce, or tobacco. A Dutch auction has also been called a clock auction or open-outcry descending-price auction. This type of auction shows the advantage of speed since a sale never requires more than one bid. It is strategically similar to a first-price sealed-bid auction.
Procurement is the process of locating and agreeing to terms and purchasing goods, services, or other works from an external source, often with the use of a tendering or competitive bidding process. The term may also refer to a contractual obligation to "procure", i.e. to "ensure" that something is done. When a government agency buys goods or services through this practice, it is referred to as government procurement or public procurement.
An online auction is an auction held over the internet and accessed by internet connected devices. Similar to in-person auctions, online auctions come in a variety of types, with different bidding and selling rules.
In economics, a price mechanism refers to the way in which price determines the allocation of resources and influences the quantity supplied and the quantity demanded of goods and services. The price mechanism, part of a market system, functions in various ways to match up buyers and sellers: as an incentive, a signal, and a rationing system for resources.
In economics, a shortage or excess demand is a situation in which the demand for a product or service exceeds its supply in a market. It is the opposite of an excess supply (surplus).
In economics, a market is a composition of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations or infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services to buyers in exchange for money. It can be said that a market is the process by which the value of goods and services are established. Markets facilitate trade and enable the distribution and allocation of resources in a society. Markets allow any tradeable item to be evaluated and priced. A market emerges more or less spontaneously or may be constructed deliberately by human interaction in order to enable the exchange of rights of services and goods. Markets generally supplant gift economies and are often held in place through rules and customs, such as a booth fee, competitive pricing, and source of goods for sale.
B2B e-commerce, short for business-to-business electronic commerce, is the sale of goods or services between businesses via an online sales portal. In general, it is used to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a company's sales efforts. Instead of receiving orders using human assets manually – by telephone or e-mail – orders are received digitally, reducing overhead costs.
A double auction is a process of buying and selling goods with multiple sellers and multiple buyers. Potential buyers submit their bids and potential sellers submit their ask prices to the market institution, and then the market institution chooses some price p that clears the market: all the sellers who asked less than p sell and all buyers who bid more than p buy at this price p. Buyers and sellers that bid or ask for exactly p are also included. A common example of a double auction is stock exchange.
An online marketplace is a type of e-commerce website where product or service information is provided by multiple third parties. Online marketplaces are the primary type of multichannel ecommerce and can be a way to streamline the production process.
Taobao is a Chinese online shopping platform. It is headquartered in Hangzhou and is owned by Alibaba. According to Alexa rank, it was the eighth most-visited website globally in 2021. Taobao.com was registered on April 21, 2003 by Alibaba Cloud Computing (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
Business-to-employee (B2E) electronic commerce uses an intrabusiness network which allows companies to provide products and/or services to their employees. Typically, companies use B2E networks to automate employee-related corporate processes. B2E portals have to be compelling to the people who use them. Companies are competing for eyeballs of their employees with eBay, Yahoo and thousands of other web sites. A huge percentage of traffic to consumer web sites comes from people who are connecting to the net at the office.
PFSweb, Inc. is an eCommerce fulfillment and logistics 3PL service provider for business-to-business and direct-to-consumer companies. Its corporate headquarters were relocated from Allen, Texas to Irving, Texas in 2022. As of 2023, the company had 2.2 million square feet of warehouse space, and distribution centers in the U.S., the UK, Belgium, and Canada.
In economics and finance, the price discovery process is the process of determining the price of an asset in the marketplace through the interactions of buyers and sellers.
Customer to customer markets provide a way to allow customers to interact with each other. Traditional markets require business to customer relationships, in which a customer goes to the business in order to purchase a product or service. In customer to customer markets, the business facilitates an environment where customers can sell goods or services to each other. Other types of markets include business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C).
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 this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well.
A reverse auction is a type of auction in which the traditional roles of buyer and seller are reversed. Thus, there is one buyer and many potential sellers. In an ordinary auction also known as a forward auction, buyers compete to obtain goods or services by offering increasingly higher prices. In contrast, in a reverse auction, the sellers compete to obtain business from the buyer and prices will typically decrease as the sellers underbid each other.
Recommerce or reverse commerce is the selling of previously owned, new or used products, mainly electronic devices or media such as books, through physical or online distribution channels to buyers who repair, if necessary, then reuse, recycle or resell them.
There are many types of e-commerce models, based on market segmentation, that can be used to conducted business online. The 6 types of business models that can be used in e-commerce include: Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Consumer-to-Business (C2B), Business-to-Business (B2B), Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C), Business-to-Administration (B2A), and Consumer-to-Administration