This paper addresses how consumers use Internet with the focus on information search and decision making process. Our findings based on the survey results are as follows: 1.Time constraint is observed with respect to information search via Internet. 2.The higher a consumer’s involvement in choosing specific item, the longer he/she spends on information search. 3.However, it is paradoxical that information obtained via Internet becomes less important in decision-making process, as the involvement gets higher.

These findings imply the following. 1.The spread of Internet usage has a limited effect in improving the market efficiency. 2.Consumers are likely to spend more time on high-involvement items for more information, resulting in less time on information search for low-involvement items.

Whether or not information collected via Internet will be used in decision-making process depends mainly on the extent of the consumers’ average involvement with the item in concern.

Does increasing the number of information channels in the information network society diversify or concentrate consumption variety? To answer this question, we studied how increasing the number of information channels affects consumption behavior in our society. We develop a model of a winner-take-all phenomenon by an information channel effect. An information channel is defined as an information communication medium, and channel quantity is defined as the amount of information it can exchange between individuals.

From the simulation results we obtained, we conclude that the ongoing development of information channels, i.e., the development of interactive information networks, tends to strengthen winner-take-all phenomena. We propose a scenario under which the society branches off from variety consumption or concentrated consumption by interactive effects between the number of information channels and the composition of consumers.

Soon after the Internet was introduced to business, we observed the unprecedented surge of “dot-com firms” and the burst of so-called net bubbles. We are in the middle of transition of the economic systems. The business managers are looking for ways to restructure and reconstruct their businesses to take advantage of the new technology. The researchers attempt to find the new rules and principles to explain the phenomena of the emerging economy.

The academic endeavors have sprung up, in recent years, to promote the effort to advance the query for these vitally important questions. ERF (E-commerce Research Forum) is one of the projects directed to this end. It is sponsored by the Center for eBusiness at MIT and the INFORMS College on Marketing. The purpose of this research note is to conduct a literature survey on all the papers posted on ERF (1998-2001). We outlined an overview of the research being conducted at ERF and obtained a map of EC research scenery. This will serve as a guide for those who want to grasp a general view of e-commerce research as a whole as well as a documentation of describing the very early stage of e-commerce research in academic world.

Recently, marketing using the Internet attracts attention. While the importance of e-mail marketing is asserted, an analysis using actual delivered mails’ data has not been performed. In this research, by analyzing the click data of actual delivered mails, it is shown that received persons reacted to the attributes of mails such as mail formats, link guidance and link positions. As for incentive mails, it is suggested that contents in subject lines and kinds of incentives are more important than the amount of incentives.