IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpio/0211001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Competition in B2C eCommerce: Analytical Issues and Empirical Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan W. Schmitz

    (ICE, Austrian Academy of Sciences)

  • Michael Latzer

    (ICE, Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

This paper questions the widely held view that B2C eCommerce markets are characterised by a high intensity of competition, using a mixture of theoretical arguments and empirical evidence. We discuss two hypothesis and survey empirical studies which test them. We argue that the goods sold in B2C eCommerce have to be interpreted as heterogeneous “composite goods”, that market transparency in B2C eCommerce is lower than widely assumed, and that high endogenous sunk costs limit the intensity of competition in B2C eCommerce.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan W. Schmitz & Michael Latzer, 2002. "Competition in B2C eCommerce: Analytical Issues and Empirical Evidence," Industrial Organization 0211001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0211001
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; prepared on wordfile on mac; pages: 27; figures: none. Revised version submitted to Electronic Markets
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/io/papers/0211/0211001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kathy Baylis & Jeffrey Perloff, 2002. "Price Dispersion on the Internet: Good Firms and Bad Firms," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 21(3), pages 305-324, November.
    2. Yannis Bakos, 2001. "The Emerging Landscape for Retail E-Commerce," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 69-80, Winter.
    3. Jeffrey R. Brown & Austan Goolsbee, 2000. "Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive?," NBER Working Papers 7996, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Erik Brynjolfsson & Michael D. Smith, 2000. "Frictionless Commerce? A Comparison of Internet and Conventional Retailers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 563-585, April.
    5. Jeffrey R. Brown & Austan Goolsbee, 2002. "Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive? Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 481-507, June.
    6. Yannis Bakos & Erik Brynjolfsson, 1999. "Bundling Information Goods: Pricing, Profits, and Efficiency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(12), pages 1613-1630, December.
    7. Clay, Karen, et al, 2002. "Retail Strategies on the Web: Price and Non-price Competition in the Online Book Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 351-367, September.
    8. Severin Borenstein & Garth Saloner, 2001. "Economics and Electronic Commerce," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 3-12, Winter.
    9. Oecd, 1998. "Electronic Commerce: Prices and Consumer Issues for Three Products: Books, Compact Discs and Software," OECD Digital Economy Papers 32, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Evert‐Jan Visser & Martin Lanzendorf, 2004. "Mobility And Accessibility Effects Of B2c E‐Commerce: A Literature Review," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 95(2), pages 189-205, April.
    2. Häring, Julia, 2003. "Different Prices for Identical Products? Market Efficiency and the Virtual Location in B2C E-Commerce," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-68, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arup Daripa & Sandeep Kapur, 2001. "Pricing on the Internet," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 17(2), pages 202-216, Summer.
    2. Zhao, Dongmei & Savage, Scott J. & Chen, Yongmin, 2008. "Ownership, location and prices in chinese electronic commerce markets," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 192-207, June.
    3. Edgardo Arturo Ayala Gaytán, 2009. "Social network externalities and price dispersion in online markets," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(2), pages 1-28, November.
    4. Michael A. Arnold & Christine Saliba, 2003. "Price Dispersion in Online Markets: The Case of College Textbooks," Working Papers 03-02, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    5. Gerard J. Berg, 2006. "Revolutionary Effects of New Information Technologies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(509), pages 10-28, February.
    6. Brynjolfsson, Erik & Dick, Astrid Andrea & Smith, Michael D., 2004. "Search and Product Differentiation at an Internet Shopbot," Working papers 4441-03, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    7. De los Santos, Babur, 2018. "Consumer search on the Internet," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 66-105.
    8. Wu, Kewen & Vassileva, Julita & Noorian, Zeinab & Zhao, Yuxiang, 2015. "How do you feel when you see a list of prices? the interplay among price dispersion, perceived risk and initial trust in Chinese C2C market," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 36-46.
    9. Anindya Ghose & Yuliang Yao, 2011. "Using Transaction Prices to Re-Examine Price Dispersion in Electronic Markets," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 269-288, June.
    10. Sulin Ba & Jan Stallaert & Zhongju Zhang, 2012. "Research Note ---Online Price Dispersion: A Game-Theoretic Perspective and Empirical Evidence," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 575-592, June.
    11. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan & Patrick Scholten, 2004. "Price Dispersion In The Small And In The Large: Evidence From An Internet Price Comparison Site," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 463-496, December.
    12. Dinlersoz, Emin M. & Pereira, Pedro, 2007. "On the diffusion of electronic commerce," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 541-574, June.
    13. Randy A. Nelson & Richard Cohen & Frederik Roy Rasmussen, 2007. "An Analysis of Pricing Strategy and Price Dispersion on the Internet," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 95-110, Winter.
    14. Stephen McDonald & Colin Wren, 2017. "Consumer Search Ability, Price Dispersion and the Digital Divide," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(2), pages 234-250, April.
    15. Nestor Duch-Brown & Bertin Martens, 2014. "Consumer benefits from the EU Digital Single Market: evidence from household appliances markets," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2014-03, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    16. Pereira, Pedro, 2005. "Do lower search costs reduce prices and price dispersion?," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 61-72, January.
    17. Yannis Bakos, 2001. "The Emerging Landscape for Retail E-Commerce," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 69-80, Winter.
    18. Fiona Scott Morton, 2006. "Consumer Benefit from Use of the Internet," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 6, pages 67-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Fiona Scott Morton & Florian Zettelmeyer & Jorge Silva Risso, 2000. "Internet Car Retailing," NBER Working Papers 7961, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Michael R. Baye & John Morgan, 2009. "Brand and Price Advertising in Online Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(7), pages 1139-1151, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electronic commerce; competition; market structure; endogenous sunk costs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L - Industrial Organization
    • L - Industrial Organization

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0211001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.