Page 158 - Electronic Commerce

Selling on the Web

Another type of online classified advertising business is the used vehicle site. Trader
Publishing has printed advertising newspapers for many years and now operates the
AutoTrader.com site. Similar sites accept paid advertising from individuals and companies
that want to sell cars, motorcycles, and boats.
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A product that is likely to be useful after the original buyer uses it is an appropriate
item for inclusion in a classified advertising site. Classified advertising sites for used
musical instruments, comic books, and used golf equipment are just a few examples.

Advertising-Subscription Mixed Revenue Models
In an advertising-subscription mixed revenue model, which has been used for many years
by traditional print newspapers and magazines, subscribers pay a fee, but also accept
some level of advertising. On Web sites that use the advertising-subscription mixed
revenue model, subscribers are typically subjected to much less advertising than they are
on sites supported completely by advertising. Firms have had varying levels of success in
applying this mixed revenue model and a number of companies have moved to or from
this model as they try to find the best way to generate revenue online.
Two of the world’s most widely-circulated newspapers, The New York Times and The
Wall Street Journal, have each used an advertising-subscription mixed model since they
first took their publications online. The Wall Street Journal’s mixed model is weighted
toward subscription revenue. The site allows nonsubscribing visitors to view the classified
ads and certain stories from the newspaper, but most of the content is reserved for
subscribers who pay an annual fee for access to the site. Visitors who already subscribe to
the print edition are offered a reduced rate on subscriptions to the online edition. As you
will learn later in this chapter, The New York Times has gone through a number of
changes to its revenue model, but for most of its online life it has made considerable
portions of its content available at no cost and relied more heavily on advertising than
The Wall Street Journal.
Most newspapers and magazines that use the advertising-subscription mixed
revenue model for their online publications make most of their content available
online, but a number of them do restrict the amount of free content as The Wall Street
Journal does. Figure 3-3 shows the revenue models used by a number of newspapers
and magazines, including those that use the advertising-supported model, the advertising-
subscription mixed model with substantial content freely available, and the
advertising-subscription mixed model with most content available only to subscribers.

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