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Lesson 7Agora model (an adaptation of the storefront model)
ObjectiveList the features of the agora business model.

Agora Model is an Adaptation of Storefront model

The Agora model represents an innovative adaptation of the storefront model in e-business, borrowing its name from the ancient Greek term "agora," which refers to a public open space used for assemblies and markets. This model captures the idea of a dynamic, decentralized marketplace where many different sellers and buyers interact, in contrast to the traditional one-to-many storefront model.
Key features of the Agora business model include:
  1. Multitude of Sellers and Buyers: The Agora model is characterized by a large number of buyers and sellers. This creates a vibrant and competitive marketplace where consumers can find a wide range of products and sellers can reach a larger customer base.
  2. Decentralization: The Agora model is decentralized. No single entity owns or controls the entire marketplace. Instead, individual sellers are responsible for their own products, pricing, and customer service, among other things.
  3. Interactivity: The Agora model promotes interactive engagement. Buyers and sellers can communicate directly with each other, facilitating negotiations, price haggling, and more personalized customer service.
  4. Transparency: The Agora model fosters transparency. Prices, product information, and seller ratings are visible to all participants, enabling buyers to make informed decisions and sellers to build reputations based on their performance.
  5. Platform Role: In the context of e-business, the role of the platform provider (like eBay or Amazon Marketplace) is to facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers, rather than to sell products directly. This involves providing the infrastructure for the marketplace, ensuring the security of transactions, and resolving disputes between parties.
  6. User-Generated Content: In the Agora model, a significant amount of the content, such as product listings and reviews, is created by the users themselves. This user-generated content plays a critical role in the functioning of the marketplace by providing information and building trust.
  7. Community-Building: The Agora model encourages the development of online communities. Buyers and sellers can form groups based on common interests or needs, and these communities can influence the dynamics and norms of the marketplace.

Overall, the Agora business model represents a shift from the traditional storefront model, reflecting the broader trend in e-business towards more decentralized, interactive, and community-oriented marketplaces.

Agora comes from ancient Greek Marketplaces

The agora business model is one of the oldest known to mankind. Agora is a term used to describe ancient Greek marketplaces. In an agora business model, the buyer and seller negotiate the price of an item. In ancient times, this involved traveling to the local marketplace and haggling over the price of an item directly with the storekeeper. The same principles of this model have been adapted to fit the needs of e-Commerce shoppers.
E-commerce shoppers start by entering their favorite virtual agora marketplace. We will use eBay as our example. Once in the eBay site, the user finds items they are interested in purchasing, makes note of the minimum bid on the item, assesses the likelihood of the item being purchased at the minimum price (the popularity of the item) and bids on the item.
Unlike the traditional agora marketplace, real-time negotiating does not occur between buyer and seller. Rather, the e-Commerce version of the agora model has multiple buyers "negotiating" with each other. For instance, one shopper bids $10 for an item, while another shopper bids $12 for the item. The goal of these "negotiations" is to agree upon the highest acceptable price two or more people will pay for an item.
The goal of the agora business model is to convert goods into a desirable price.

agora business model
Agora business model


Agora Mannequin

The Agora mannequin for web enterprise began out as an experiment 10 years in the past. Agora publishing firm based mostly in Baltimore Maryland developed the mannequin. The mannequin has helped Agora to develop into one of many largest on-line e-newsletter publishers on the planet.
Question: What precisely is the Agora Mannequin web Enterprise?
Answer: The Agora web enterprise mannequin works by utilizing direct response advertising and marketing rules to promote info merchandise on-line. The profitable system is examined and utilized to different niches. It is a hybrid franchise enterprise spinning off worthwhile companies based mostly on confirmed enterprise techniques.

B-Web Taxonomy

Not all b-webs are equal. We have investigated many hundreds and have written more than two hundred case studies. A number of distinct patterns emerged, with direct bearing on competitive strategy. Central to our analysis is a new typology of business models (figure 5-7). The typology applies to the physical business world almost as well as to the digital world. However, its digital application has some key differences. First, organizations often shift the basis of competition from one type to another as they move from the physical world to a bweb approach. A traditional full-service broker works (at least in theory) as a Value Chain, expertly tailoring advice to each individual investor. An online broker like Charles Schwab or E*Trade shifts the model to an Aggregation of advisory information and investment services, available to their customers for picking and choosing. Second, business model innovation becomes the basis of competitive advantage. Innovators like eBay, Cisco, and Priceline develop new ways to create and deliver value. In the process, they dramatically change the playing field and the rules of the game. Finally, in the physical world, one of the types of business models, the Alliance is rare and primitive. In the world of b-webs, however, Alliances, including innovation collaboratives like Linux, become highly visible as powerful and dynamic drivers of change.

B-Web Typology
(Figure 5-7) The B-Web Typology

Digital Marketing