Digital Business Ecosystem

DBE (Digital Business Ecosystem) is a free,

open source and distributed software platform
that is based on Internet technologies. It is
designed to enable SMEs, specifically, to
create, integrate and provide services (both
real world and software) more efficiently and
more effectively.
Electronic Commerce Mechanism
EC Participants and Components
EC - Components & Mechanism
E-Marketplace : Components & Participants

T h e major components and players in aMarketspace are:

Customers
Sellers
Products and services
digital products
Goods that can be transformed to digital format and
delivered over the Internet
Infrastructure
E-Marketplace : Components & Participants

f ro nt end
The portion of an e-seller’s business processes through which
customers interact, including the seller’s portal, electronic catalogs, a
shopping cart, a search engine, and a payment gateway
b a c k end
The activities that support online order fulfillment, inventory
management, purchasing from suppliers, payment processing,
packaging, and delivery
intermediary
A third party that operates between sellers and buyers
Disintermediation is a market practice
where there is a reduction in the use of
middlemen or intermediaries between the
producer and the consumer.

Reintermediation is when middleman/men

or intermediary/ies is/are introduced between
the producer and the consumer.
Disintermediation
Dell has discovered that it can better meet
customer needs through direct contact with
customers and even offers customers the
option of customising their products during
the order process (Kraemer et al, 2000). This is
a step further than simply obtaining customer
information. In fact, Dell’s customers are able
to actually dictate a product’s specifications
prior to its assembly. This would be a very
expensive and complicated service to offer if
intermediaries were involved. Using this
model, Dell has differentiated itself from the
competition and become a clear market leader
in the PC industry.

Banking Industry
Travel Industry
Hospitality Industry
Reintermediation
Amazon (originally an online book retailer) has used
e-business to quickly develop a customer base
which far exceeds that of any book publisher. This is
because consumers were (and still are) drawn by
the value-adding services provided by Amazon.
Nowadays, Amazon sells a huge variety of products
and any manufacturer who opts not to sell its
products through intermediaries such as Amazon
will considerably limit their sales opportunities.
Using such intermediaries enables manufacturers to
reach a much wider audience with their products
and offer customers a ‘value-added’ experience.

Levi’s Strauss
Online Purchasing Process
E-Commerce/Online Marketplace

An online marketplace/online e-commerce marketplace is

a type of e-commerce site where product or service information
is provided by multiple third parties, whereas transactions are
processed by the marketplace operator.

Online marketplaces are the primary type of multichannel

ecommerce and can be a way to streamline the production
process.

In an online marketplace, consumer transactions are processed

by the marketplace operator and then delivered and fulfilled by
the participating retailers or wholesalers (often called drop
shipping). Other capabilities might include auctioning (forward or
reverse), catalogs, ordering, wanted advertisement, trading
exchange functionality and capabilities.

In general, because marketplaces aggregate products from a

wide array of providers, selection is usually more wide, and
availability is higher than in vendor-specific online retail stores.
User interface and user experience matters.
T Y P E S OF E-MARKETPLACES
sell-side e-marketplace
A private e-marketplace in which one company sells
either standard and/or customized products to
qualified companies
buy-side e-marketplace
A private e-marketplace in which one company makes
purchases from invited suppliers
E-marketplaces connect buyers and sellers
together on a single platform for commercial
activity. When you talk about marketplaces,
you definitely hear terms like B2C, B2B, C2C or
peer-to-peer.

The way how they are connected and how the

services or products are being sold on the
platform categorizes the marketplace into
different types. These marketplaces are also
often defined under the term multi-vendor
marketplace and sharing economy platforms.
1. Product Online Marketplace
This type is what we typically call as
an ecommerce marketplace, where people
buy and sell products. The platform brings
together all types of sellers into a one-stop-
shop that is convenient for consumers to not
only check prices for the best deals but do so
all under one electronic roof. Also, with
features like auction and fixed price sale, the
seller lists a product and sets a deadline; buyer
with the highest bid gets the item.
Usually, this type of marketplace is owned by
an operator who enables third-party sellers to
sell products alongside the marketplace
owner's regular offerings.
Examples include Amazon, Flipkart, eBay, etc.
Here, the vendor business model plays a major
role that determines the profit for marketplace
owners. Hence, it is wise to choose the right
multi-vendor software that has a flexible
model and suits one’s requirements.
2. Online Service Marketplace
The online marketplace is no longer restricted
to just selling products. One can even cater to
the service industry.
For a startup business that wants to launch a
marketplace with minimal input, it is good to
offer different services that people search for.
In a services marketplace, the discovery of
services forms the basis of its offering to the
customers and opportunities for paid work
form the basis of its offering to freelancers.

Platforms like Fiverr, Upwork are freelance

services marketplaces.
With the service business, one has to offer a
robust & reliable online platform to connect
service seekers with service providers. The
platform acts as a bridge connecting both
these ends. One can earn a commission on
each successful transaction.
3. Online Rental Marketplace
The transportation and fashion industry are
popular among investors and aspiring
entrepreneurs.

Mobile apps like Uber, Ola are fantastic

examples of this model, which are giving a
huge rise to peer-to-peer marketplaces that
are renting through online mediums. As an
aspiring entrepreneur, one can focus on niche-
based online rental marketplaces such as
vacation rental, car rental, bike rental and
equipment rental with the help of rental e-
commerce platform.
4. Hybrid Model in Ecommerce
There can be two types of hybrid online
marketplaces. One category is where people
expect to sell and buy both services and
products on the same platform. The online
marketplace like Olx fits into this category.
Another one is where people want to get the
combined benefits of buying from the online
and offline stores. In this model, the customer
first books the products online. After that, they
walk down to the nearby physical store to buy
those products. Currently, ticket booking
websites like BookMyShow works based on
this model.
Big retailers like Reliance Trends and Myntra
foray into the ecommerce segment with a
hybrid online-offline model.
This model creates shared profitability by
integrating offline stores via the online
platform. As such you can launch hybrid online
marketplaces to bring local merchants to sell
their products through its website.
5. Hyperlocal Marketplace
The concept of hyperlocal came into the
picture when people started to look for
the nearby options while searching for shops,
restaurants, etc. through search engines.
In this marketplace model, the aim is to
provide facilities and services within the
shortest possible time from local vendors.
The hyperlocal ecommerce marketplace is
quite similar to marketplaces like Amazon.
The main difference is that the customers will
be only able to buy products from vendors
who can ensure delivery within 24 hours.
Examples for this marketplace model includes
Urbanclap, Bigbasket, ClickYourMed, etc.
Also, the food delivery marketplaces like
Zomato and Swiggy come under this category.
Customer Shopping Mechanisms: Storefronts,
Malls, and Portals
Webstore (Storefront)
A single company’s website where products or
services are sold; usually has an online
shopping cart associated with it
Many Webstores target a specific industry
and find their own unique corner of the
market.
e - m a l l (onlinemall)
An online shopping center where many online stores are located.

An electronic mall, in its basic form, consists of a collection of e-shops,

usually enhanced by a common umbrella, for example a well-known brand
may be enriched by a common granted payment method.
The e-malls operators may not have an interest in an individual business that
is being hosted. Instead the operator may seek benefits in enhanced sales of
the supporting technologies (e.g., IBM with World Avenue).
Alternatively benefits are sought in services (e.g., Barclays with
BarclaysSquer), or in advertising space and/or brand reinforcement or in
collective benefits for the e-shops that are hosted such as traffic, with the
expectation that visiting one shop on the e-mall will lead to visits to
neighboring shops

T Y P E S OF STORES ANDMALLS
General stores/malls
Specialized stores/malls
Regional versus global stores
Pure-play versus click-and-mortar stores
W e b (information)portal
A single point of access, through a Web browser, to critical business
information located inside and outside (via Internet) an organization

Ty p e s of Portals :
1. Commercial (public) portals
2. Corporate portals
3. Publishing portals
4. Personal portals
5. Mobile portal
A portal accessible via a mobile device.
voice portal
A portal accessed by telephone or cell phone.
A Commercial Portal is a single ecosystem
that provides visibility and control to service
provider B2B customers and internal
operations staff while understanding that
today’s complex myriad of legacy systems are
not going to go away.

Examples : My Yahoo!, lycos.com, msn.com

A corporate portal is a website that contains
a company’s internal enterprise-wide
information and content accessible to both
customers and employees. In a corporate
portal, users can access the status of their
questions and requests, research the
knowledge base and find updated content.

Examples : SharePoint, HCL Connections,

Atlassian Confluence, Drupal
A Publishing Portal/Site is where Publishers
come to create and sell their marketplace
offers. To build a Test Drive you must first
publish an offer on this site.
It’s a site where authoring and publishing are
more structured and where content
management processes are enforced.
Publishing sites have typically been used to
create enterprise intranets and communication
portals.

Examples : The Microsoft Publishing Portal,

The Official Prague Portal
A Personal Portal is typically associated with
a search engine such as Yahoo and Google.
The page displays selected information such as
news, weather and stock quotes. If the portal
publisher offers e-mail, instant messaging (IM)
or other services, direct links to those systems
are also provided.
M-portals are wireless Web pages that help
wireless users in their interactions with mobile
content and services.
Merchant Solutions: Electronic Catalogs, Search Engines, and
Shopping Carts

electronic catalogs (e-catalogs)

The presentation of product information in an electronic form; the
backbone of most e-selling sites
On lin e Catalogs Versus Paper Catalogs
 Merchant Solutions: Electronic Catalogs, Search
Engines, and Shopping Carts

E C SEARCH ACTIVITIES, TYPES, ANDENGINES

Ty p e s of ECSearches
Internet/Web Search
enterprise search
The practice of identifying and enabling specific content
across the enterprise to be indexed, searched, and displayed to
authorized users
Merchant Solutions: Electronic Catalogs, Search
Engines, and Shopping Carts

desktop search
Search tools that search the contents of a user’s or organization’s
computer files, rather than searching the Internet
The emphasis is on finding all the information that is available on
the user’s PC, including Web browser histories, e-mail archives,
and word- processed documents, as well as in all internal files and
databases.
Merchant Solutions: Electronic Catalogs, Search
Engines, and Shopping Carts

Search engine
A computer program that can access databases of Internet
resources, search for specific information or key words, and report
the results
Software (Intelligent) Agents
Questions and Answers Online
Voice-Powered Search
Visual Shopping Search Engine
 Merchant Solutions: Electronic Catalogs, Search
Engines, and Shopping Carts

electronic shopping cart

An order-processing technology that allows customers to accumulate
items they wish to buy while they continue to shop
OT H E R MECHANISMS INMERCHANT SOFTWARE
O t h e r ShoppingEngines
Product Configuration
 Auctions, Bartering, and Negotiating Online

au c t i o n
A competitive process in which a seller solicits consecutive bids from
buyers (forward auctions) or a buyer solicits bids from sellers (backward
auctions); prices are determined dynamically by the bids
d y n am i c pricing
Prices that change based on supply and demand relationships at
any given time
 Auctions, Bartering, and Negotiating Online

T Y P E S OF AUCTIONS
O n e Buyer, OneSeller
O n e Seller, Many PotentialBuyers
forward auction
An auction in which a seller entertains bids from buyers;
bidders increase price sequentially
 Auctions, Bartering, and Negotiating Online

O n e Buyer, Many PotentialSellers

reverse auction (bidding or tendering system)
Auction in which the buyer places an item for bid (tender) on a
request for quote (RFQ) system, potential suppliers bid on the job,
with the price reducing sequentially, and the lowest bid wins; primarily
a B2B or G2B mechanism
name-your-own-price model
Auction model in which a would-be buyer specifies the price (and
other terms) he or she is willing to pay to any willing and able seller; a
C2B model that was pioneered by Priceline.com.
 Auctions, Bartering, and Negotiating Online

M a ny Sellers, Many Buyers

double auction
• An auction in which multiple buyers and their bidding prices are
matched with multiple sellers and their asking prices, considering the
quantities on both sides
penny auction
• A formal auction in which participants pay a nonrefundable small fee for
each bid; bid level changes by small increments
Auctions, Bartering, and Negotiating Online

Limitations of E-Auctions
Minimal Security
Possibility of Fraud
Limited Participation
 Auctions, Bartering, and Negotiating Online

IMPACTS OF AUCTIONS
Auctions as a Social Mechanism to Determine aPrice
Auctions as a Highly Visible Distribution Mechanism
Auctions as an EC Component in a Business Model
Auctions for Profit for Individuals