AUCNET: Electronic Intermediary for Used-Car Transactions

Introduction As the advent of nearly ubiquitous information infrastructures promotes the development of electronic commerce applications, new electronic market intermediaries are emerging which bring significant changes in the economics of marketing and distribution channels by interposing themselves between suppliers and consumers in electronic marketplaces (Rayport and Sviokla 1994). On the one hand, these electronic intermediary services can increase efficiency for search, contract formation and trade settlement involved with market transactions (Lee and Clark 1996a). On the other hand, the electronic intermediary services create new transaction risks (Lee 1997a).