Measurements in E-Business

Introduction

The Internet has emerged as the very foundation for business communications worldwide. Indeed, in the instant that it takes to read these words, millions of people are shopping on the Internet, checking the status of orders and shipments, investigating stock prices and mortgage rates, and browsing and bidding in a new realm of online auctions. The Internet has transformed the physical marketplace into a virtual marketspace (Varadarajan & Yadav, 2002); it has created a shift from reasonably well-informed buyers to worldly Web-enabled e-consumers (Bakos, 1997); and, it has accelerated business into an information age wherein issues of technological expertise, privacy, security, and control are now essential aspects of business (Glazer, 1991; Hoffman, Novak, & Peralta, 1999).

Marketing practitioners, strategists, and researchers cannot deny the critical changes that have occurred in the realm of global business communications. Most have come to realize that online retailing is distinctive and that it requires a great deal of new research. Interactive communications and transactions now occur together in a single virtual medium that has increased risks for online consumers, and has placed a heavy communications burden on sellers whose Web site effectiveness is affected by a multitude of design characteristics (Geissler, Zinkhan, & Watson, 2001). Internet consumers are placed in a unique inference-making position in which information asymmetry abounds. The task at hand now, for researchers and practitioners alike, is to accurately measure, analyze, and interpret online behaviors.

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the topic of e-business measurement, and delineate some of what makes Internet research methods different from off-line research methods. The chapter separates measures for understanding the evolving e-consumer from measures related to the new paradigm for e-business strategy (a separation derived from the work of Biswas and Krishnan, 2004). The measures discussed in this chapter are graphically displayed in Table 1. The chapter concludes with a discussion of emerging issues in e-business metrics, and possibilities for future research.