There are two types of online retailers: pure Internet retailer (hereafter Dotcom) and
online branch of multi-channel retailer (hereafter OBMCR). Upon a superficial view that
online search costs are in fact similar (basically close to zero) for these online retailers of either
type, since consumers can obtain price information in online markets easily and inexpensively,
online price dispersion should be small or could be expected to converge over some
time, somehow. Indeed, Bakos (1997) examined the effects of lower search cost on equilibrium
prices and showed that low search cost may drive Internet prices for homogeneous
goods toward the Bertrand marginal cost pricing pattern. However, by showing the absence
of symmetric pure-strategy equilibrium in which consumers search, Harrington (2001)