Infomediaries

An infomediary is a firm that acts as a filter between companies and consumers. Individuals provide infomediaries with personal information and in turn receive targeted ads. Companies pay these infomediaries for the information that they collect.

Advertising-Based Models

In an advertising-based system, businesses' sites have ad inventory, which they sell to interested parties. There are two guiding philosophies for this practice: high-traffic or niche. Advertisers take a high-traffic approach when attempting to reach a larger audience. These advertisers are willing to pay a premium for a site that can deliver high numbers, for example advertisements on Yahoo! or AOL. When advertisers are trying to reach a smaller group of buyers, they take a niche approach. These buyers are well-defined, clearly identified, and desirable. The niche approach focuses on quality, not quantity. For example, an advertisement on WSJ.com would chiefly be viewed by business people and executives.

Community-Based Models

In a community-based system, companies allow users worldwide to interact with each other on the basis of similar areas of interest. These firms make money by accumulating loyal users and targeting them with advertising.

Example: Yahoo! Groups

Fee-Based Models

In a fee-based system, a firm charges a subscription fee to view its content. There are varying degrees of content restriction and subscription types ranging from flat-fees to pay-as-you-go.

What Separates the Best from the Rest?

A study of top B2C companies by McKinsey found that:

• Top performers had over three times as many unique visitors per month than the median. In addition, the top performer had 2,500 times more visiters than the worst performer.
  
• Top performers had an 18% conversion rate of new visitors, twice that of the median.
  
• Top performers had a revenue per transaction of 2.5 times the median.
  
• Top performers had an average gross margin three times the median.
  
• There was no significant difference in the number of transactions per customer and the visitor acquisition cost.
  

Essentially, these masters of B2C e-commerce (eBay, Amazon, etc.) remain at the top because of effective communication and value to the customer..