Challenges of the Digital Age: The Relevant Product Market Definition in Online and Offline Sales

Abstract

The rise of e-commerce has been on the agenda of competition authorities ever since it started blending online and offline marketplaces and puzzling enforcers in terms of assessing the competitive interaction between online and offline sales. Indeed, technological developments have led firms to establish hybrid distribution channels and offer their goods and services both online and offline, which eventually raised the question on whether online and offline sales fall within the same product market.

Although no clear-cut rule exists in defining the relevant product market for cases involving both online and offline retail, recent precedents of various competition authorities have revealed the evolution in their approaches to the substitutability of online and offline channel.

Keywords: competition, market definition, e-commerce, online and offline sales

JEL Classification: K21, L81, L40