Two effects on the organization of markets emerge against the background of electronic distribution.
The first has to do with the type of testing that the transaction creates and how it relates to the way markets are coordinated and organized. At one extreme, we would have a situation where information is scarce, goods characteristics are clear and few in number, customer relationships are weak in information content and are rare or intermittent.
We then find ourselves in the context of a transactional market. The transaction or price is determined a priori for the characteristics of the goods and the actors with defined clear preferences and utility functions.
The market itself has little memory and moves slowly. The consumer is the result of a sum of all their buying behavior. The feedback of consumption on production takes place in slow time and according to long socio-technical chains.
At the other extreme, we would have a situation where information is rich and abundant, product descriptions are complex, and information-rich, frequent and interactive testing and transactions.
The market then became definitional. The transaction and the price at which it is carried out are frozen and confirm the description of the products, their usefulness and the preferences of the consumer.
This market is changing rapidly. Goods have a career, and their properties change over the course of exchanges, as well as consumers' preferences and utility functions.
Variations are fast. Historicity and memory play an important role in this form of market organization. Feedback on the definition of the offer from consumption apps is fast in a short loop.
The faster and cheaper this feedback, the more co-produced the transaction and the object, the supply and the demand. That is, it develops towards the coordination characteristic of service contracts.
Within this mode of coordination, services can be effectively compared, as in standardized service contracts.
On the contrary, it will be necessary to distinguish the way in which it is very difficult to compare, since they are linked by implied and informal contracts. There should be codable aspects of the interactions of actors promoting the effects of opacity in the organization of markets and partnerships.
Therefore, our field analysis of the electronic distribution of tangible goods by mass distribution players shows the possibility of a transition from the coordinating feature of a transactional and anonymous market to a defined and personalized market.
Now, taking a broader view and relying on the few studies presented in this issue, we can attempt to sketch an ideal type of market coordination specific to electronic distribution in a universe structured by dense information networks.
Therefore, it can be summarized in four important points.
— It is the transition from commercial rationality based on economies of scale to commercial rationality based on economies of scope. The problem of selling products to as many customers as possible has been replaced by the problem of selling all the services he needs to the same customer.
— There is a highly diversified structure of sectors and partnership forms, which makes it possible to increase the cost of leaving. It is an inseparable packaging of combined products and services (Separation destroys the investments made to establish the necessary harmony of supply and demand). These economies of scope largely correspond to the strategies of aggregated portals.
— The opposite of the commercial ideal where anonymous and knowledgeable actors exchange in a memoryless market. It is heavily equipped with connectivity and feedback tools, where instant coordination is essentially price-based.
— A personalized service that associates a tailored set of products and services around a particular customer. Prices may then depend on the singularity and the nature of the service as a whole. This may be affected by the overall value of the customer. This is defined beyond the commercial realm of individual transactions and includes both relational and expectation dimensions.
Each of these points, taken separately, is likely to fall within the usual industrial or commercial frameworks.
For example, price differentiation can be observed in an industrial context that is both flexible and oriented towards volume and production. This is the case of yield management. But it does not necessarily see the obvious effects of customer personalization or intensification.
Or, the diversification of services for the general public can be observed outside of the Internet, through the strategy of large retailers to offer financial, insurance or travel services.
It is therefore the unification of these disparate elements into a coherent whole that raises the question of a new form of coordination.
To arrive at the hypothesis of a radically innovative model of economic profitability of the Internet involved in the articulation of the commercial and non-commercial Web, there is the "3Cs rule" in the media.
Put more strictly in economic terms, it is necessary to combine the four terms of the ideal type formed above.
In such an ideal typical market, professional competition is aimed at capturing a well-known customer for all of his needs, not buying a generally known customer.
Therefore, it is important to capture a target audience, maintain an individual and personalized relationship with each member, anticipate meeting future needs.
Building loyalty through all free and paid services offered electronically and according to a system is also an important issue.
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