Home   Internet Marketing                                        Ward Hanson   Stanford GSB

B2C eCommerce             

Learning Objectives

PACE of ecommerce

Channel conflict

The Experience Economy challenge 

 

Case:  Amazon 2002

 

 

 

 

 
 
Readings & Tasks
Hanson, Ch. 12
Lunn & Suman
Forrester Reports
 

Example Sites: Some top ecommerce sites (measured by traffic)
eBay
Amazon
Coolsavings
Travelocity
Ticketmaster

Profits Online!
$100 billion and growing
Breaking even: "Economic Darwinism" and all
 Shop.org:   Conducting the study.

 
Newstand
_____/ 04-02\___  "Fine Tuning Customer Behavior" Tools of the trade for investigating consumer behavior. NY Times. 
_____/ 02-25-01\__ "The Blackened Blue Chips of E-commerce"  Tales of losses at eToys, Webvan, and Buy.com ,  The Standard. 
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 You want excitement?  Its hard to see how the last two years could disappoint any thrill-seeker.  From "irrational exuberance" to "gloom and doom", the pure play ecommerce sites have had a roller coaster ride.  But, right along with this uproar has been the quiet growth of ecommerce activities by almost all businesses.   What's next?  Part evolution, part reality, and part breakthrough.  In other words, more of the same dynamic changes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Patron Saint of Ecommerce - now finally focusing on profits.

Is the Net changing the way we shop?      YES!

What is the right way to evaluate the Net's impact on retail?  An ongoing effort by the National Bureau of Economic Research (as featured in a joint conference with the Stanford Center for Electronic Commerce) is taking an "economist's look" at that question.  One simple question:  Is the Net cheaper than traditional outlets?  Well, for cars and books it seems so.  Do the prices for traditional physical stores interact with the prices in online stores?  Yes, in the case of computer sales they seem to be quite strongly linked.   Are these the biggest impacts of the Net?  NO - probably not by a long shot.

While it may be the case that prices are somewhat lower online, almost certainly the biggest impact of the Net on prices and markets is to make consumers and businesses much better informed about the prevailing alternatives and pricing.  The Net is making the market more dynamic and fully informed- and this has a much bigger effect on the economy.