E-business models taxonomies – History, comparison and the future

There is the need for majority of researched e-business models to be mentioned at one place (although those are not all existing business models on the web), and commented if needed (I use it at e-business postgraduate studies IIM/EURO). At the end of this article I mentioned three “new” e-business models, based on the variation of several existing ones.

Timmers (1998)

E-shop Value chain integrators
E-procurement Virtual communities
E-auction Collaboration platforms
E-mall Third-party marketplace
Information brokers

Viehland (1999)

He has identified three new or emerging business models that are made possible by the Web:

– Virtual retailer
– Distributed storefront
– Buyer-led pricing

Laudon and Traver (2000)

20 models in two major categories:

– B2C variation (e.g. portals /general,vertical/, e-tailers /virtual merchant, click and mortar/, content provider, service provider)
– B2B variation (e.g. marketplace /vertical, horizontal/, application service provider, matchmaker, lead generator)
Applegate (2001)

25 models in four major categories:
Focused distributor (e-tailers, market-places, aggregators, infomediaries)
Portal (horizontal, vertical, affinity)
Producer (manufacturer, info services)
Infrastructure (ISP, hardware, software)

Rappa (2002)

30+ models in nine major categories:
– Brokerage (e.g., buyer aggregator, auctions, search agent, marketplace)
– Advertising (e.g., portals, free model, attention marketing, bargain discounter)
– Infomediary (e.g. registration)
– Merchant (e.g., virtual store)
– Manufacturer (i.e., disintermediation)
– Affiliate (i.e.,click-through purchase)
– Community (e.g., knowledge networks)
– Subscription
– Utility (i.e., pay as you go)

Weill and Vitale (2001)

Eight “atomic business models� that can
be combined, like atoms into molecules,
to represent a way of doing e-commerce:
– Content provider
– Direct to consumer
– Full service provider
– Intermediary
– Shared infrastructure
– Value net integrator
– Virtual community
– Whole of enterprise

Hartman and Sifonis (2002)

Five “e-conomy� models:
– E-business storefront
– Infomediary
– Trust intermediary
– E-business enabler
– Infrastructure provider

Abrams (2003)

– Transactional
– Informational
– Promotional
– Relational

Turban, King, Lee, and Viehland (2004)

17 business models, some of them is mentioned first time:

– Group purchasing
– Product and service customisation
– Deep discounting
– Supply chain improvers

…

The majority of mentioned online business models can be found here, with more detailed explanation.

BART Graphical Taxonomy Analysis, Wang and Chan (2003)
Based of the survey of four buiness models – Bambury (1998), Eisenmann (2002), Rappa (2000), and Timmers (1998).

All observed models can be divided in three categories:

– Gift Model
– Direct exchange
– Indirect Model
Witiger (2005)

Summary of several Internet business models (Schneider/Perry, Turban, Eisenmann, Afuah/Tucci):

• Product
• Consumer Product
• The Web Catalog Model
• Through a Broker, or Portal
• Industrial Product
• Through a Broker, or Portal
• Through an Industry Association Portal
• Through a Third-Party Intermediary
• Service
• Consumer Service
• Advertiser pays, viewer sees content free model
• Subscription based revenue models
• Advertising-Subscription Mixed Model
• Fee-for-Transaction/Services Models
• Industrial Service
• Subscription based revenue models
• Fee-for-Transaction/Services Models
• Through an Industry Association Portal
• Through a Third-Party Intermediary

Emerging business models as the variations of existing ones

In the last two or three years there are several new e-business models, based on existing taxonomies:

– Syndication provider, as the variation of content provider and content sharing business model.

– Social Networking Provider, as the variation of community provider and content provider.

– P2P related business models, as the variation content sharing and application service providing.