What Does Reintermediation Mean?
Reintermediation is the reintroduction of an intermediary between a goods producer and consumers. While disintermediation removes elements form the supply chain, reintermediation adds new elements to the supply chain. Reintermediation occurs due to many issues associated with the e-commerce disintermediation model, mostly involving issues with the direct-to-consumer model.
Techopedia Explains Reintermediation
E-commerce has often been seen as a tool of disintermediation as it brings significant cuts in operating costs in many instances. However, the massive customer service requirements, high shipping expenses for small orders and challenges posed by the disintermediated retailers and supply channel partners which happens in some cases helped spur reintermediation. In a disintermediated business model, the producer needs to do all the activities associated with presales and post-sales for the consumers. Huge resources are often required to accomplish all these activities. In a reintermediation concept, the supply chain middlemen acts as the sales people for the producers and leverages their resources and capabilities to handle these activities. These allow the producer to focus only on the goods and thus produce the best final end product.
