eBusiness Models

Writing eBusiness Plans

• Building A Business Plan For An E-Commerce Project (by Brian Walsh for Techweb)
• Business Plan how to create for free
• "Short and Sweet: Crafting an e-business Plan" - by Mark Hendricks, published in Business Startup magazine (May 2000)
• Bplans.com - the small business planning destination
  • Sample Business Plans
  • the Plan Wizard
  • the Mini-Business Plan
  • the Business Planning Spreadsheet Glossary
• Business Plan Advice - Directory of sample business plans for retail, non-profit, food, hotel, and real estate.
• LivePlan.com - sample business plans and free download of their business plan software
• A Simple, Effective Business Plan Writing Guide by NU's Dr. Marc Meyer
• downloadable financial spreadsheets for business plan (by Marc Meyer)

eBusiness Models

• "Business Models on the Web" - Michael Rappa's comprehensive guide
• eCommerce Business Models - from Enterprise B2B.com
• Electronic Commerce Strategy Links from John Gallaugher at Boston College
• Avoid The Pitfalls Of Going From Bricks To Clicks - from InternetWeek
• Predatory Disintermediation - by Hal Berghel
• WWW Uses for E-Commerce: A Classification Scheme by Cappel & Myerscough
• Business Models from ISWORLD - a short bibliography
• New Business Models for Electronic Commerce by Dennis Viehland
• On the road of electronic commerce (Berkeley research paper)
• IBM e-business Advisor
• Consultants hone e-biz strategies from ZDNet
• eCommerce Student Projects from Georgetown Univ.
• Enews.com - the ultimate magazine site
• The E-Business Tidal Wave from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
• Future Web: Innovative Startups - from InformationWeek
• the eBusiness 100 from InformationWeek
• businessmodel.com: Home - consulting company
• EC Models and Frameworks from ISWORLD (a bit dated now)
• the Affiliate eBusiness Model explained by CashPile.com and a related article

Overview of Basic Internet Revenue Models (B2C and B2B)

1. etailer: Product Sales (Transactional Commerce) - selling physical goods (order fulfillment + outbound logistics)
2. etailer: Digital Goods Sales (Transactional Commerce) - "content" - magazines, music, software, etc.
3. Advertising-supported (banner ads sold to generate revenues) - usually with free content
4. Subscription Fee - periodic charge for membership or access to content (often tiered)
5. Commission or Transaction (usage) Fee - agent, broker, or intermediary charge (B2C, B2B, or C2C)
   - there are many models in this category (auctions, infomediaries, content maximization, etc.)
   - brokerage models include market exchanges, buyer aggregator, trading communities, metamediary, vortal, search agent, etc.
6. logistics / fulfillment value added (integrated supply chain)
7. data mining analysis sales - free content, but sell data about virtual visitors (privacy implications)
8. affiliate model - pay to drive traffic to a site
9. community model / expertise database (subscription or brokerage fee)
10. utility model - metered usage (pay per byte or minute)

Sources:

Applegate, L.M., J.W. McFarlan, & J.L. McKenney (1999) Corporate Information Systems Management (5e), New York: Irwin-McGraw-Hill.

Business Models on the Web by Michael Rappa

and other sources