| Consumer
Based E-Business Consumer
Based E-Business models basically provide one or more of the
following services:
A.
Content : These types of business, develop or buy quality
content and deliver it to the target audience. The deliver mechanism
could be a website, e-mail news letter, a custom built tool bar, or
a simple FTP to the subscriber.
An example of
content based companies:
Yahoo : Yahoo builds and buys content. The content includes news
stories, stock quotes, movie reviews, yellow pages, etc. They
mostly acquire their content from a third party such as Associated
Press or build in house. Revenues are generated either through
subscriptions, or advertising or both.
B.
Community: These types of business build an online
community. The community is typically built using an online forum or
sometimes through a e-mail club. The interests of members of the
community defines the business. Revenues are generated either
through a membership fee, or a commission for each transaction that
takes place in the virtual community.
The networking effects are
very important in a community based model. The barriers to entry
into this model are quite high. It is easy to build to build a
community based website, but very very tough to build the
membership.
An example
of the Community based companies:
EBay:
EBay is a great example of this model. EBay had built a community of
online buyers and sellers and provides a platform for trading almost
all kinds of items. EBay takes a cut of each sale made.
C. Commerce:
This is the most common type of business
model in the e-business world. The website of the company acts
as on online store front. Various products are sold to the customers
and are typically delivered through the snail mail
system. It is relatively easy to setup an online shop. The challenge
would be to advertise the site in a cost effective manner. The
ability to procure the merchandise at a low price is a competitive
advantage in this model.
Example of
the commerce based e-business:
Amazon.com:
Amazon.com is the forerunner of the e-business companies. The
company started out by selling books on the Internet and then
diversified into other easy to mail products such as music CD, DVDs,
toys, etc.
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