Claims have often been made that the quality of online buying experience - web site ease of use, selection of goods offered, quality of customer service, the effectiveness of virtual community building, and site personalization - are crucial to the success of e-commerce firms. We posit that...

We show that network advantages constitute an important intangible asset that goes unrecognized in the financial statements. For a sample of e-commerce firms, we find that network advantages created by website traffic have substantial explanatory power for stock prices over and above traditional...