Towards a Taxonomy of E-Commerce: Characterizing Content Creator-based Business Models

Currently, new business models can be observed in content creator-based e-commerce. The research on e-commerce has grown rapidly and new concepts have emerged such as social commerce, platforms, and user-generated content. However, no overarching perspective has yet been formulated for distinguishing new content creator-based business models within e-commerce. The aim of this paper is therefore to characterize content creator-based business models by formulating a taxonomy of e-commerce based on a structured literature review of the concepts mentioned above. The results of our study point toward eight types of content creator-based business models. Our paper outlines theoretical and practical implications for the emerging phenomenon of content creator-based business, which we refer to as intellectual commerce. In addition, we describe 19 concepts related to Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and e-commerce.