Digital Dealing: How E-markets are Transforming the Economy Book

Despite floundering stocks, tanking valuations, accelerating layoffs, and intensifying skepticism, the Internet remains a place where business deals of all kinds are increasingly executed. Stanford economics professor Robert Hall studied the myriad forms of business-to-consumer and business-to-business "electronic dickering" now evolving online, and he astutely analyzes their structure and potential in Digital Dealing. "Consumers buy books and sell Barbie dolls. Investors buy stocks and bonds. Businesses buy steel ingots and sell bulldozers," he writes. All consistently improve these automated systems in the process, he adds, and will ultimately ensure they are more efficient than comparable types of traditional dealmaking. In a discussion certain to spark the imagination, Hall details six primary methods now used to consummate such online transactions: the eBay model (many sellers offering many products to many buyers), the OffRoad model (one seller offering multiple units of one product to many buyers), the FreeMarkets model (one buyer requesting one product from many suppliers), the Nasdaq model (many sellers offering similar products to many buyers), the Priceline model (many customers seeking similar products from many sellers), and the Grainger/Amazon model (one seller offering many products to many buyers at rates that may be set or negotiable). Readers should find his insights illuminating and potentially transferable to their own operations. --Howard Rothman Read More