Meeting Consumer Needs on the Internet: Successful Business Models

The meteoric rise in the number of users on the Internet has led to a proliferation of web-based companies. While many of these companies have yet to be profitable, a miniscule few have been able to grow explosively while maintaining a positive revenue flow from the onset. By examining America Online, Yahoo and Amazon.com, this paper shows first how successful companies have been able to capitalize on what consumers’ value most from the Internet and how these companies have been able to meet latent consumer demands. In summary, firms must adhere to five factors to be successful: value-pricing: multi-product offerings; leveraging information on demand; trust and lengthy relationships.