E-commerce retail companies offer increasingly larger assortments and include products from a large number of suppliers without holding the goods in stock. Having the goods physically located at the supplier increase the need for coordination in the supply chain, implying modified roles of the actors involved and requires information systems to support the exchange processes between collaborating parties. In order for retailers to be competitive and responsive to customer needs there are increasing efforts to combine different supply chain alternatives, thus requiring additional activities of coordination. This paper seeks to identify different possible supply chain alternatives, to describe their characterizations and to perform a comparative analysis of these alternatives based on inductively generated categories. The purpose of the paper is to identify, describe and analyse different supply chain alternatives in the context of e-commerce when the retailing company is not holding stock. The study applied a multi organizational approach, involving representatives from wholesaling, retailing and distribution companies working jointly with the researchers. The empirical material was collected through workshops and complementary interviews and was modelled as action patterns depicting preconditions for, and effects of business actions, organized in patterns of initiative and response. The paper identifies and describes six different supply alternatives: purchase flow; vendor management inventory flow; direct delivery; cross docking; consolidation of packages; and consolidation of goods. Among other things, the analysis shows how the various supply chain alternatives imply divergent requirements on information systems to support these different supply chain processes. In addition to an identification and overview of the different supply chain alternatives, the results may also serve as valuable input for retailers deciding appropriate combinations of supply chain alternatives. The paper also demonstrates how a multi organizational approach can be used in collaborative projects involving business practitioners and researchers.