Dynamic pricing in the virtual marketplace

From its simple beginnings in the town square, the "marketplace" has grown to encompass the entire global business environment. The vast and intricately woven infrastructure necessary for this level of commerce involves issues of money, credit, insurance, legal infrastructure, corporate and individual identities, and fraud detection and deterrence. As market activities move online, we have an opportunity to re-examine the processes and conventions that governed pre-Internet commerce, and to restructure those that need it for the virtual marketplace. One concept being challenged by new technologies is fixed pricing, which became prevalent in western society during the industrial revolution when mass production and widespread delivery of goods made price negotiation impractical. A Wyoming frontiersman could not negotiate with Sears, Roebuck and Co. about the mail-order catalog price of a pair of boots in the late 1890s. The Internet now has the potential to reverse that trend.