E-Business Models
E-Businesses are having a significant influence on our everyday transactions and form an important part of the society’s marketplace. Whether it be buy, sell, swap or trade, what one can find is seemingly limitless. While the internet has challenged traditional business operations, it has also produced a space where established business models can be innovated. Additionally, the internet has seen the creation of new and exclusive marketplaces for certain industries, mainly done through entrepreneurialism.
Through a brief analysis, this report will discuss two very different e-business models. Firstly, there is the e-auction model, where auctioning was innovated and created a very popular form of purchasing today. The second model is the collaboration platform model, which creates a unique marketplace exclusive to the internet.
E-Auction Models Deshpande and Pattalwar (2017) describe e-auction models as ‘… an e-business between auctioneers and bidders, which takes place on an electronic marketplace. It is an electronic commerce which occurs in business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C), or consumer- to-consumer (C2C)’. A popular e-business that uses an e-auction business model is eBay, a website that revolutionised your local garage sale and flea markets.
Most internet users know what eBay is; an online trading community that connects buyers to anything and sellers to anyone (provided it is legal and abides by eBay’s guidelines). Sellers are able to list their merchandise and buyers are able to bid on any item. All eBay users can search the listed items that are otherwise organised by categories (Mishra, 2010). As eBay does not manufacture or store inventory, its value chain is service-based and streamlined. To generate profit, the e-business charges the seller a rate and a percentage of the final value of the sale, and this applies to every transaction. After the auction, eBay sends an email of the sale and the newly bound contract to the winning bidder and the seller.
Although it does not utilise the traditional e-auction design, Airtasker, the mobile e-marketplace enabling users to outsource tasks, has demonstrated similar success in providing a user-friendly platform that connects B2B, B2C and C2C e-businesses (Jaggernaut, 2017). The importance of this is that is shows diversity in the e-auction’s application.
Collaboration Platform Model This model is used as a central social network for an e-businesses to generate internal communication with stakeholders or external communication with its employees. The collaboration model is a platform that facilitates the exchange of information with a constructive purpose (Rouse, 2011). A popular example of an e-business using this platform is Google Groups.
Google Groups is an online platform used as a host to thousands of online groups, offering a vast range of topics, which an individual can subscribe or be invited to. Within the groups, it is similar to a virtual community in which its members can collaborate on business ideas or as a notice board. Google Group users are able to participate in threaded conversations via a web interface or through emails. The benefit of the Google Group platform is that it provides two different types of discussion groups. The first is an online forum that functions more similarly to a mailing list. The second is a Usenetgroup, where Google Groups acts as a gateway to the internet’s biggest archive of Usenet groups (Safari Books Online, 2017).
Many e-businesses are implementing collaboration platform models, with something as simple and cost effective as Facebook Groups. These spaces represent great tools for internal and external communication of different ideas and perspectives. This is important part of business as it improves its internal communication and business progression.
References Deshpande, R & Pattalwar, S V 2017, ‘E-Auction System for Software Development Useful For Freelancers and Clients.’, Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR), vol. 3, no. 6, pp. 607-610, viewed 24 August 2017, http://www.onlinejournal.in/IJIRV3I6/101.pdf
‘Meet Airtasker, a Community Marketplace Enabling Users to Hire Skilled
Workers for their Tasks’ 2016, Juggernaut, Seattle, viewed 24 August 2017, http://nextjuggernaut.com/blog/airtasker-australia-marketplace-hire-skilled-workers-airtasker-success-story/
Mishra, M K 2010, ‘Why is eBay the Most Successful Online Auction?’, Global Journal of Management and Business Research, vol. 10, no. 9, pp. 62-65, viewed 24 August 2017, https://globaljournals.org/GJMBR_Volume10/10-Why-is-eBay-the-Most-Successful-Online-Auction.pdf
Rouse, M 2011, Collaboration Platform, TechTarget, viewed 24 August 2017, http://searchcontentmanagement.techtarget.com/definition/collaboration-platform
Safari Books Online 2017, Chapter 4. Googling with Others: Groups and Answers, O’Reilly Media Incorporated, viewed 24 August 2017, https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/google-the-missing/0596100191/ch04.html