Supply chain coordination in buyer centric B2B electronic markets

While over the past 4 years more than 1000 B2B electronic markets that cater to a wide spectrum of industries have been established, many of them have already disappeared. This reality can be explained by several factors, two of which we think are important: the transaction fees that owners of these markets charge participants, and the supply chain coordination mechanisms that these markets do (or actually do not) facilitate. In this paper, we take the viewpoint of supply chain coordination to analyze the decision of suppliers and buyers to do or not do business in electronic markets while selling perishable products with random demand. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.