Business models to offer customized output in electronic commerce

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Scheer, Christian^a | Hansen, Torben^b | Loos, Peter^a

Affiliations: [a] Information Systems and Management, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, D-55099 Mainz, Germany. Tel.: +49 89 382 33802; Fax: +49 89 382 7033802; E-mail: cscheer@wiwi.uni-mainz.de, loos@wiwi.uni-mainz.de | [b] Information Systems and Management, Chemnitz University of Technology, D-09107 Chemnitz, Germany. E-mail: torben.hansen@s1998.tu-chemnitz.de

Abstract: Seller-driven business models (e.g. online bookstores) have been successfully implemented and concretized in Electronic Commerce both in practice and science in the last years. In contrast to this we can depict that more customer-driven business models are implemented in the beginning. One major problem of customizable products and services in Electronic Commerce can be found in the adaptation of the human advisory activity which is inevitable in the traditional sale. For this reason we depict the customization in the customer's view and the corresponding business models in electronic markets. Main focus will be on the improvement of the communication interface between customer and seller in order to better specify the output, especially for customer-driven output. At this point we suggest an IT-enabled consulting component which creates predictions for the customer's specification by using association rules.

DOI: 10.3233/ICA-2003-10206

Journal: Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 163-175, 2003