ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

If we think about understanding e-commerce, we soon realise that we have to examine the intersections among technology, economics, and behaviour. While there is no shortage of texts on the enabling technology, it changes so rapidly that any available textbook is likely to be obsolete. Several texts have recently been published that focus on the economics of networks, so that gap seems to be filled. That leaves us with online behaviour, an important niche that this book explores in an interesting way.

The text alternates between a demand and supply perspective - Chapter 3 (Web strategy: attracting and retaining visitors) leads us to an examination of the use of web technology to support marketing (Chapter 4), promotion and purchasing (5), and distribution (6). Service quality and pricing are briefly addressed (Chapters 7 and 8), and the book ends with a snappy little review of postmodernism in the context of e-commerce.