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Business Models for E-commerce: Old Wine in New Bottles?
Abstract- While e-commerce is sprouting radical changes in intra-organizational
structures and inter-organizational relationships, the underlying principles turn out to
be less than novel. Rather, they reflect a revival of traditional values that prevailed
well before the advent of mass production. From a customer's perspective, most
"new" business models in the Information Age are indeed old wine in new bottles.
This is demonstrated with ten trends in e-commerce and explains why conventional
rules in the old economy still apply, bursting the bubble of unrealistic valuations of
numerous e-business ventures.
Keywords? e-commerce, business models, digital economy, information age
1. Introduction
There has been much hyperbole in both academic and business circles, not to mention the news
media, about how the Internet is revolutionalizing the marketplace. Online business is transforming the
marketplace into a marketspace [7]. E-commerce is giving rise to a global, digital economy [10], [11], [6].
Enterprises large and small must adapt or risk falling by the wayside [3]. "New" business models are the
order of the day [2]. While emerging changes in intra-organizational structures and inter-organizational alliances
[8] do qualify as novelty, in contrast to previous development in the context of modern management,
the underlying principles turn out to be nothing new. This is best demonstrated by assuming a customer's
perspective and examining ten trends in business transformation that are the driving forces behind the rapid
growth in e-commerce [5].
2. Transformation versus Transplantation
T he Internet is a new medium of communication connecting business ...