Products and services in cyberspace

摘要

In the physical world, products and services are traditionally distinguished from each other on the basis of tangibility and intangibility; indeed, services are often described as intangible products. In the virtual world of the fixed and mobile Internet, however, this distinction is no longer appropriate: both products and services become intangible. This is essentially because the Internet is not merely a technology but represents an entirely new medium for conducting business, a fact that was overlooked by many of the early entrants into this space. This medium is defined by information and fundamentally different from the physical space where business has traditionally been transacted. Consequently, the concept of products and services requires study. In this paper we focus on business-to-consumer (B2C) markets and explore consumer products and services in cyberspace, distinguishing them along a number of dimensions.