Collect now–consume later on innovative products in electronic commerce

摘要

In our paper, we develop the idea that in the future electronic commerce will increasingly involve customers whose lack of time for consumption forces them to collect the products they purchase for later consumption.The peculiarity of these conditions at the point of sale will be discussed in detail from the perspective of economic theory. The analysis will elaborate how certain characteristics of utility functions as well as other characteristics of this consumer segment contribute to these peculiarities.As a result some lessons for the timing of innovations in the supply of information commodoities are derived. In particular, it is shown why it might be profitable for suppliers in electronic commerce to produce waves of technological fashions. From a theoretical point of view, it seems to be reasonable to use chaotic dynamics to describe this highly volatile market behavior.