An Analysis of e-commerce business models in order to develop a new classification for them

Abstract

The concept of business model in e-commerce attracted many researchers and practitioners within the last decade. Nevertheless, a clear and common understanding of some concepts in this area is still missing. Classification of business models in e-commerce is one of these missing concepts. Therefore, the main goal of this study is finding a classification for business models in e-commerce. For achieving this goal, a conceptual and qualitative study is conducted. The literature survey resulted in identification of nine main models in ecommerce, which are later analysed based on the actors and their roles. The analysis identified three main criteria with their sub criteria, which are applied as the basis for the classification. This is conducted in three different categories named as 1-Dimmensional, 2-Dimmensional and 3-Dimensional classifications. The result of this study can be helpful to give a clear understanding about the existing business models and their behaviour based on the main defined criteria.