New Directions in Supply Chain Management

Chapter 3

Internet Retailers’ Dilemma of Operational and Market Efficiencies

Joseph P. Bailey and Elliot Rabinovich

University of Maryland

“First of all, you wouldn’t get hype working if there weren’t something fundamentally sound under it. The issue really gets to the increasing evidence that a significant part of the distribution of goods and services in this country is going to move from conventional channels into some form of Internet system.”

Alan Greenspan

Chairman

Federal Reserve

Testimony before the U.S. Senate, January 1999

INTRODUCTION

THE QUOTE PRESENTED ABOVE SYNTHESIZES perceptions in academic and practitioner communities regarding the impact that purchases by end-consumers will have on the efficiency in which materials are transferred ...