The Structure and Components of E-mall Business Models

This paper is concerned with e-mall business models. The investigation defines what constitutes an e-mall, the different types of implementations, and surveys a number of established e-malls. The study looks at e-malls through the eyes of a buyer and seller and describes the different types of components available to each on e-malls including categorization, payment facilities and considerations, site linking and redirection, buyer traffic, loyalty and advertising schemes and legalities. It becomes apparent throughout the paper that e-malls use a diverse number of strategies in their implementations, and that sellers using e-malls maintain their autonomy as individual retailers. Therefore while e-mall structures may look similar on the surface, looking at individual components shows the breadth of e-mall implementations available. The major contribution of this paper is in its establishment of an end-to-end e-mall framework that can be used to study a range of e-mall business types, highlighting similarities and differences.