Design Trade-offs for Electronic Intermediaries

Electronic commerce offers intermediaries new opportunities for facilitating the transfer of information, goods and services between business customers and suppliers. Designing exchanges is a complex undertaking because of the many design options on the one hand and the diverse, and sometimes conflicting, interests of customers, suppliers and the intermediary to be considered on the other. Our research provides constructive support for balancing interests beyond simple prescriptions like 'creating win-win situations.' We developed an exchange design model and patterns focusing on trade-offs for electronic intermediaries based upon four in-depth case studies.

See the publication in Electronic Markets here.