Marketing Challenges of E-Services
Technological innovations---such as the telephone, television, and the Internet---enable new capabilities that may create long-lasting changes in organizational structure, conduct, and performance. E-commerce currently accounts for a small portion of the U.S. economy, and an even smaller portion of the economies of other developed countries. Hence, marketers imperfectly understand the long-run ramifications of e-commerce for the behavior of buyers and sellers, organizational conduct and performance, the function and evolution of markets, and public policy. For example, there are differences between traditional and computer-mediated buying environments, with the latter characterized by increased information flows, interactivity, reduced information asymmetry between buyers and sellers, and a shift away from geographically based competition. However, the consequences of these features for organizational behavior are (as yet) unclear.