The impact of customer-generated evaluation information on sales in online platform-based markets

As the online platform-based market expands, research into the impact of consumer-accessible information in this market on performance has received significant attention in recent years. In this study, we focus on customer-generated evaluation information (CGEI). The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the effect of CGEI—both quantitative (i.e., star rating, star rating volume) and qualitative (i.e., customer review content) aspects—on actual sales in an online platform-based market. We analyze the regression of quantitative GCEI on sales and for qualitative GCEI we apply the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling. We discover that star ratings do not always lead to increased sales, implying that star ratings and sales have an inverted U-shaped relationship. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that star rating volume has a positive effect on sales. We reveal that the review contents of product quality and added value have a positive effect on sales, whereas those of seller service have no effect on sales. This study provides some insight into how customer-generated information can increase actual sales in online platform-based markets.     

The role of customer online brand experience in customers' intention to forward online company-generated content: The case of the Islamic online banking sector in Palestine

The purpose of this study is twofold: Firstly, to assess the impact of customer online brand experience (COBE) with online banking on customer's intention to forward online company-generated content (CGC). Secondly, to explore the role of online brand community engagement (OBCE) and the perceived trust of brand community page (BCP) as mediating variables between COBE and the intention to forward online CGC. This research conducted an online survey among various Islamic bank customers in Palestine who were members of online brand communities (fan pages) on Facebook. 375 valid responses were collected and results revealed that COBE exerts a dual influence on intention to forward CGC. This study is a pioneering empirical research on the role of OBCE in customers' intention to forward online CGC within the fast-growing Islamic banking industry. This study contributes to fill this research gap by assessing the effect of COBE on OBCE and intention to forward online CGC within the context of the Islamic online banking sector in Palestine. In this sense, this study is a first-of-its-kind research on the role of experience on customer engagement with regard to online brand communities of Islamic banks.     

Shopping with the resale value in mind: A study on second‐hand luxury consumers

The market for second‐hand luxury products is growing and the variety of available sales channels has increased; consumers can buy second‐hand luxury goods not only from brick‐and‐mortar stores but also from a myriad of both global and local online channels. Arguably, the increase in available sales channels has changed consumers’ purchasing behaviour as the roles between sellers and buyers are alternating as one can act as a buyer one day and a seller the next. However, prior research on luxury consumption has mainly focused on brand‐new luxury goods, largely neglecting the consumption of previously‐used luxury products and has not accounted for the multi‐channel shopping environment. The purpose of this paper is to understand how consumers mentally approach the purchase of second‐hand luxury products and what kinds of decision‐making styles they use. The empirical interview data of 22 consumers was analysed by the means of shopping style dimensions that account for both consumer characteristics and external shopping conditions. The interviewees were members of a Facebook buy and sell ‐group focused on luxury products and had recently bought a second‐hand luxury product. All the existing dimensions were evident in the data but an additional dimension was also identified: resale value consciousness. The new dimension emphasizes an investment‐led and price‐quality conscious shopping style but was also found to relate to impulse buying and brand consciousness. The emergence of the dimension is argued to be due to the increase in viable online sales channels for second‐hand luxury products.     

Online information search termination patterns across product categories and consumer demographics

While accessing information online, consumers exhibit differences in their patterns of search, that is, time spent per search episode and search frequency. The search patterns vary across both consumer characteristics and product categories. We empirically investigate consumer online information search termination patterns, and relate the differences to product categories and consumer characteristics. Findings of such an empirical study would be useful for planning communication strategies, website design, etc. The model is calibrated on empirical data collected through online surveys. We find that consumer learning occurs when consumers search across search goods, but not when they search across experience goods.     

Does online observational learning matter? Empirical evidence from panel data

The information presented on a product sales page plays an important role in consumers' purchase decisions. This study examines the persuasive effect, whether a customer's choice is heavily driven by information inferred from others' behavior, and how these impacts are moderated by market age and product type. Results show that online customer choice was significantly affected by historical cumulative sales and times saved. Positive cumulative sales and shop service quality have a significant positive impact on product sales. The times saved have no direct impact on product sales. For different types of products, the times saved of experiential products has a significant impact on product sales, while the shop service quality information of search products has a greater impact on product sales. The influence of online observation learning on product sales will be significantly moderated by a combination of product type and market age. These findings not only offer important theoretical contributions to e-commerce research but also provide practical implications for online sellers and managers of social commerce platforms.     

黄冈农副产品电子商务平台推广及网络销售策略

黄冈市由于缺乏有效的市场渠道,营销观念不强,市场开拓不足,致使资源丰富的农副产品商品率低、市场知名度不高的状况长期得不到扭转。黄冈市应把具有黄冈特色,凝结黄冈历史、风情、地理、民族特色以及具有实用、美观、可藏等特点的黄冈土特产品,按中、高档次进行分类,锁定目标客户,建立电子商务平台,实施网络销售策略,通过搜索引擎营销、论坛营销、软文营销、视频营销等手段,引领黄冈农副产品进入国内国际市场,进而促进黄冈农业产业化发展。     

Online search – Online purchase in franchising: An empirical analysis of franchisor website functionality

The aim of this paper is to characterize franchisors’ e-commerce strategies by studying their website functionality. Franchisors can use their website to facilitate consumer search. They can also provide content and tools to promote online purchasing (e.g., promotion codes, online payment, delivery options). Why are some franchisor websites more “search oriented”? What are the factors that influence the provision of informational tools and/or transactional tools? This empirical study is based on a detailed observation of 130 e-commerce websites of franchisors operating their chains in the French market.     

Experiential goods with network externalities effects: An empirical study of online rating system

This paper uses online users' reviews and sales information from May 2003 to March 2007 to study a new experiential product: online video game (or virtual world). The results suggest that, first of all, for a hedonic product such as an online video game, the availability of online review system could not fully transform experience attributes into search attributes. The empirical study confirms that negative word-of-mouth has more significant impact than positive reviews. The study empirically verifies that the existence of direct network externalities (i.e. a product's value increases when more consumers join the network) is crucial for a hedonic product. The size of the user base signals the quality of the game, and works like a search attribute for potential users. A large user base will reduce the negative impact from unfavorable reviews.     

消费者社群地位与生成内容有效性的关系研究

随着Web2.0技术的发展,消费者可通过在线网络或社区自由地生成各种各样的内容。通过对太平洋快问网收集的数据进行科学分析,结果表明:消费者的社群地位正向影响其生成内容的有效性;消费者生成内容的领域宽度中介了社群地位与生成内容有效性的关系,并从总体上对生成内容的信息量和有效性产生负向影响;消费者生成内容的频率中介了社群地位与生成内容有效性的关系,并从总体上对生成内容的有效性产生负向影响;消费者生成内容的信息量中介了社群地位与生成内容有效性的关系,并对生成内容的有效性产生正向影响。     

平台型电商责任追索策略对平台型电商集体声誉的影响研究

文章对平台型电商责任追索策略进行了界定和分类，探索了责任追索策略对平台型电商集体声誉的影响，并引入社会支持理论，对责任追索策略与平台服务策略的协同效应进行了探讨。文章采用了情景实验的方法，实验结果显示：相对于惩罚型责任追索策略，补偿型责任追索策略对平台型电商集体声誉的正向影响更为显著；信息性支持和情感性支持均能够正向调节责任追索策略对平台型电商集体声誉的影响；在线消费者角色同样具有调节作用，对于受害者，补偿型策略比惩罚型策略对平台型电商集体声誉的正向影响更强，对于观察者，两种策略的影响无显著差异。文章为平台型电商市场的声誉管理提供了有益的理论贡献和实践启示。     

什么样的评论更可信？心理模拟视角下在线评论类型对感知在线评论可信性的影响研究

在线评论及其可信性已成为消费者网购决策重要的依据。以往研究多关注在线评论自身属性对在线评论可信性的影响,忽视了消费者心理认知的作用。文章从消费者心理角度,结合爬虫数据和实验研究发现,消费者对搜索品属性型评论感知可信性更高,对体验品体验型评论感知可信性更高;心理模拟在感知在线评论可信性影响过程中具有中介作用,搜索品属性型评论通过结果模拟引发更高的感知评论可信性,体验品体验型评论则通过过程模拟引发更高的感知评论可信性。研究结论对网络购物平台及商家制定更精准的营销策略和评论管理机制有帮助。     

How Online Product Reviews Affect Retail Sales: A Meta-analysis

A growing body of research has emerged on online product reviews and their ability to elicit performance outcomes desired by retailers; yet, a common understanding of the performance implications of online product reviews has eluded us. Scholars continue to navigate an array of studies assessing different design elements of online product reviews, and various research settings and data sources. We undertake a meta-analysis of 26 empirical studies yielding 443 sales elasticities to examine how these variables relate to retail sales. Building on well-established meta-analytical methods, we address the following questions: How does review valence influence the elasticity of retailer sales? What about review volume? For which product types and usage situations do online product reviews have a greater impact on retailer sales elasticity? Which types of online reviewers and websites exert the greatest influence on retailer sales elasticity? Our study answers these important questions and provides a much needed quantitative synthesis of this burgeoning stream of research.     

基于门限分位数回归的网上商品销量影响因素探析

网上商品销售与线下商品销售存在较大不同,为探索其消费模式,需要研究各影响因素对网上商品销量的作用机制。文章基于心理抗拒、贝勃定律、卢因人类行为理论等,对网络消费行为进行系统分析;综合运用分位数回归和门限回归方法,建立了门限分位数回归模型,揭示商品价格、商家信誉评分、商家信誉等级、保障标记数量、商品收藏人气、口碑数量和口碑分数等对销量的非线性异质影响。以受众广泛的iPad air2网上销售为研究对象,实证结果表明：提高商家的信誉等级、增加口碑数量能使高销量商家的销量更高,而保障标记数量的增加对热销有阻碍作用;在非热门商品转向热销品的过程中,增加收藏人气、增加口碑数量和一定价格范围内的提价对低销量商家的销量有促进作用。     

Online and offline retailing: What we know and directions for future research

The fast-paced growth of e-commerce is rapidly changing consumers’ shopping habits and shaping the future of the retail industry. While online retailing has allowed companies to overcome geographic barriers to selling and helped them achieve operational efficiencies, offline retailers have struggled to compete with online retailers, and many retailers have chosen to operate both online and offline. This paper presents a review of the literature on the interaction between e-commerce and offline retailing, highlighting empirical findings and generalizable insights, and discussing their managerial implications. Our review includes studies published in more than 50 different academic journals spanning various disciplines from the inception of the internet to present. We organize our paper around three main research questions. First, what is the relationship between online and offline retail channels including competition and complementarity between online and offline sellers as well as online and offline channels of an omnichannel retailer? Under this question we also try to understand the impact of e-commerce on market structure and what factors impact the intensity of competition /complementarity. Second, what is the impact of e-commerce on consumer behavior? We specifically investigate how e-commerce has impacted consumer search, its implications for price dispersion, and user generated content. Third, how has e-commerce impacted retailers’ key managerial decisions? The key research questions under this heading include: (i) What is the impact of big data on retailing? (ii) What is the impact of digitization on retailer outcomes? (iii) What is the impact of e-commerce on sales concentration? (iv) What is the impact of e-commerce and platforms on pricing? And (v) How should retailers manage product returns across online and offline channels? Under each section, we also develop detailed recommendations for future research which we hope will inspire continued interest in this domain.     

How online reviews and coupons affect sales and pricing: An empirical study based on e-commerce platform

With rapid economic growth largely fueled by digital technologies, online reviews are among the new wave of technologies that still make a significant contribution to this new digital economy. However, there is scarce academic research in promoting or responding online reviews using reduction coupons with threshold issued by sellers and pricing decisions. We employ a three-stage least squares (3SLS) model to estimate the effects of online reviews and coupons on online product sales and price. We also extend our research using the data of two product categories. Our results mainly include: (1) Negative impact of negative online reviews on sales is moderated by price, and consumers are more tolerant of negative reviews of high-priced products. (2) Consumers' perceived usefulness of online coupons helps promote more sales and weaken the relationship between negative reviews and sales. (3) Positive online reviews weaken the negative relationship between online negative reviews and the price of product. (4) Consumers’ increased perceived usefulness of online coupons will encourage sellers to set a higher price and weaken the negative relationship between negative reviews and the price of product. (5) Compared with the search product, sellers regard negative reviews from the product with experience attributes as less helpful and apply less effective coupon promotion to response to negative reviews. Our study clarifies the interaction between online reviews and online coupons on e-commerce platforms under the operation scenario. We also provide empirical support for accurate promotion and higher sales revenue through reasonable pricing decisions and specified reduction coupons.     

How Online Consumer Segments Differ in Long-term Marketing Effectiveness

Online commerce gives companies not only a growing global sales platform, but also powerful consumers enjoying 24/7 availability, choice proliferation and the power to opt in and out permission-based communication. Unfortunately, our knowledge is limited on long-term marketing effectiveness in this space and on how it differs across customer segments. Managers appear overwhelmed by the combination of rich online data on hundreds of thousands of customers and the typical aggregate-level data on offline marketing spending.This paper is the first to investigate the long-term impact of coupon promotions, TV, radio, print, and Internet advertising across customer segments for a major digital music provider with over 500,000 customers. We first segment customers and subsequently analyze how these segments respond in the long run to different marketing activities when purchasing music downloads. Our findings reveal that the effectiveness of marketing differs across segments, while standard segmentation approaches fail to identify the most valuable catches in a sea of consumers. In contrast to empirical generalizations on consumer packaged goods, heavy users of digital music products are least sensitive to price and most sensitive to TV advertising and to multiple touch points. Light users, the majority of consumers, are price sensitive and tend to opt out of targeted communication. Our research enables managers in the digital media space to target high-value customer segments with the most effective actions.     

Digital distribution and the prohibition of resale markets for information goods

An existing theoretical literature finds that frictionless resale markets cannot reduce profits of monopolist producers of perfectly durable goods. This paper starts by presenting logical arguments suggesting this finding does not hold for goods consumers tire of with use, implying the impact of resale is an empirical question. The empirical impact is then estimated in the market for video games, one of many markets in which producers may soon legally prevent resale by distributing their products digitally as downloads or streamed rentals. Estimation proceeds in two steps. First, demand parameters are estimated using a dynamic discrete choice model in a market with allowed resale, using data on new sales and used trade-ins. Then, using these parameter estimates, prices, profits, and consumer welfare are simulated under counterfactual environments. When resale is allowed, firms are unable to prevent their goods from selling for low prices in later periods. The ability to do so by restricting resale outright yields significant profit increases. Renting, however, does not raise profits as much due to a revenue extraction problem.     

“同品不同价”:价值感知与定价差异——基于当当网自营与入驻商家的比较

平台经济发展日益加剧网络零售市场竞争和价格离散,商家间同商品定价差异背后的理论逻辑亟待厘清。由于消费者对商品各价值特征存在差异偏好,从而产生不同程度的溢价意愿。研究表明:商家在质量、服务、评论反馈方面所代表的价值感知差异对不同商家商品定价差异的传导机制有显著影响。其中,商家间的服务体验价值差异对网络商品定价的提升影响效用明显,评论反馈所代表的信息价值在初次购买后的影响力减弱。面对价格分档,市场上价格敏感者更看重功能价值,追求物美价廉;中高价位商品的消费者更注重增值服务的体验价值感知。互联网零售商要有针对性地制定相关价值感知提升策略;相关管理部门要防范"感知过度"式哄抬物价以维护市场竞争秩序。     

The Direct and Reposting Effects of Advertorials on Sales

Advertorials have been shown to influence advertising recall and brand evaluation. However, no research has examined their impact on sales. This study uses longitudinal data on durable consumer goods in China to assess the extent to which advertorials influence sales. The study finds that advertorials have dual, positive effects on firms’ sales: a direct effect through original copy and a reposting effect through online exposure.     

The fallacy of the heavy buyer: Exploring purchasing frequencies of fresh fruit and vegetable categories

‘Avocado lover,’ ‘banana lover,’ or ‘berry lover’ – these words are starting to dominate the contemporary marketing campaigns for fresh fruit and vegetable categories. Such campaigns assume that there are sizable buyer segments who purchase a particular fresh category more frequently, who are contributing a larger portion of sales, and who will continue to do so into the future. Yet, an established body of empirical evidence from consumer packaged goods (CPG) categories suggests that these assumptions could be false. The current study empirically examines fresh category purchasing behavior (through a large Nielsen US panel data) by applying three known models: the Negative Binomial Distribution, the Pareto share, and the stability over time analysis (buyers and sales contribution). This study compares the results and finds that despite many differences between fresh and CPG categories, buyers' purchasing behavior follows the same established benchmarks patterns as those observed in CPG contexts. There are many more infrequent or light buyers than heavy ‘lovers’; the heavy buyers contribute roughly 60% of sales; they are purchasing less frequently, and contributing fewer sales as time goes by. These findings carry important implications for marketers, retailers, and farmers of fresh categories. Specifically, the results show which marketing campaigns (i.e., those highly targeted at ‘lovers’ or those with a mass marketing appeal) are better grounded in the empirical evidence about buyer behavior which has the highest probability of increasing consumption.