Buyer-Carts for B2B EC: The b-Cart Approach
Gyoo Gun Lim, Jae Kyu Lee · Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce · 2003
To support the purchasing process in the B2B EC platform, we analyzed various architectures of buyer-carts. The desired features in buyer-carts are collection, recording, trashing, tracking, identification, ordering, payment, purchasing decision support, and transmission of records to e-procurement systems. A buyer-cart can be categorized as s-cart, i-cart, and b-cart depending upon its residing sites: seller, intermediary, and buyer. To design the architectures of B2B e-marketplaces considering the role of buyer-carts, we analyzed the feasible combinations of marketplace operators, pricing mechanisms, and types of buyer-carts. Seventeen elementary types of B2B EC architectures turned out meaningful in this regard, thus their pros and cons are evaluated. Based on this framework, we designed a composite architecture MyCart, which allows the buyer to use b-cart along with s-cart and i-cart. By using the b-cart, a buyer can visit multiple sites collecting information in his or her own cart. This will allow t...