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4  Fixed-  price  sale Examples: all e‑tailers

Static call – online catalogue with fixed prices. Dynamic call – 

online catalogue with continuously updated prices and features

5  Pure markets Example: electronic share dealing

Spot – buyers’ and sellers’ bids clear instantly

6 Barter Examples: www.intagio.com and  

www.bartercard.co.uk

Barter – buyers and sellers exchange goods. According to the 

International Reciprocal Trade Association (www.irta.com), 

barter trade was over $9 billion in 2002

Source: Adapted from The All‑In‑ One‑  Market, Harvard Business Review, pp.  2–  3 (Nunes, P., Kambil, A. and Wilson, D. 2000) © 2000 by 

the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, all rights reserved.

Table 2.4

Commercial mechanisms and online transactions

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58

Part 1  Introduction

 Sarkar   et al  . (1996) identified many different types of new intermediaries (mainly from a 

B2C perspective) which we can still recognise today: 

   

● 

  Directories (such as Yahoo!, Excite).  

  

● 

  Search  engines  (AltaVista,  Infoseek).  

  

● 

  Malls  (BarclaySquare,  Buckingham  Gate).  

  

● 

  Virtual  resellers  ( own‑  inventory  and   sell‑  direct,  e.g.  Amazon,  CDNow).  

  

● 

  Financial intermediaries (off ering digital cash and cheque payment services, such as 

Paypal).  

  

● 

  Forums, fan clubs and user groups (referred to collectively as ‘virtual communities’).  

  

● 

  Evaluators (sites which perform review or comparison of services).   

 Riggins and Mitra (2007) have a more recent evaluation of alternative online market‑

place players which we review in  Chapter   7   . A further type of intermediary is the  virtual 

marketplace  or virtual trading community of the B2B marketplace. From the supplier’s 

or manufacturer’s perspective they provide a new channel for selling their products. The 

form of these marketplaces is considered in more detail in ‘ Focus on  B2B marketplaces’ in 

 Chapter   7   .