Consumers’ online responses to the death of a celebrity

Humans have long been fascinated with celebrated persons. Because celebrities are usually protected, fans rely on celebrity-related products to connect to a beloved individual. As symbolic embodiments of celebrities, these related products often become cherished personal possessions. The death of a celebrity appears to strongly elevate a celebrity’s stature and increase the value of the celebrity’s products. This research examined marketplace effects of celebrity deaths using longitudinal data obtained from online auctions. Results indicated that a celebrity's death strongly boosts demand for surviving memorabilia. Marketers were also found to act with incredible speed in offering products to meet this heightened demand. These findings suggest that the effect of death on memorabilia sales varied by product type and death context.     

Does the host match the content? A taxonomical update on online consumption communities

Abstract

This article proposes a taxonomy of online consumption communities in order to address this rather ambiguously conceptualised research field. Specifically, intercommunity differences are investigated with regard to how content focus (brand vs activity) and its congruency with the type of host (doubled vs mixed) affect consumers’ posting behaviour. Based on an online survey (n = 888), a series of regressions of various benefits on posting behaviour supports the usability of the proposed taxonomy. In particular, social benefits had the strongest effect on consumers’ posting behaviour across all communities, while the effects of functional, altruistic and sharing benefits varied in significance and direction of influence when accounting for the different community characteristics. These findings help marketing managers to design online communities and motivate consumers to contribute.     

It’s never the same: the role of homogeneity in online services

This research aims to study the differences between services sold on the Internet, based on their degree of homogeneity. While travel services are mostly sold online, other customizable services do not enjoy the same success. We carry out an empirical study based on declared intentions, risk perceptions, and actual purchasing behavior. The main findings show that: the degree of homogeneity is an adequate segmentation variable for online services; homogeneous services seem more suited to e-commerce than non-homogeneous services; a relation exists between perceived risk and intention to buy services online; and the scope of some traditional classification variables needs narrowing.     

Understanding the impact of online customers’ shopping experience on online impulsive buying: A study on two leading E-commerce platforms

Research offers some indication that the online customers' shopping experience (OCSE) can be a strong predictor of online impulsive buying behavior, but there is not much empirical support available to form a holistic understanding; whether, and indeed how, the effects of the OCSE on online impulsive buying behavior are affected by customers' attitudinal loyalty and self-control are not well understood areas of research. In this study, we examine how functional and psychological dimensions of the OCSE influence online impulsive buying within e-commerce platforms. We will investigate customers' attitudinal loyalty as a mediator between the OCSE and online impulsive buying behavior, and the customers' self-control as a moderator between customers' attitudinal loyalty and online impulsive buying. To analyze these relationships we will conduct an online survey (n = 1489) with customers of two leading Chinese e-commerce platforms: Jindong and Taobao. The findings from structural equation modeling indicate a positive relationship between the tested dimensions of the OCSE and customers' online impulsive buying. We also find a mediating role of customers' attitudinal loyalty and negative moderation of customers’ self-control. Theoretically, the findings contribute to the literature regarding online impulsive buying and the online customer experience. For managers, the findings stress the importance of ethical management with regard to the online shopping experiences.     

The multichannel pricing dilemma: Do consumers accept higher offline than online prices?

Whether to unify or discriminate prices in offline and online channels is a controversial topic that can be central to whether offline retailers survive in the marketplace. Field data evidence from a large multichannel retailer reveals a sobering picture. On average, only offline price premiums of approximately 2% seem feasible, and such premiums vary largely by product categories and price levels. High-priced products, which consumers perceive as risky, tend to allow offline price premiums, as do low-priced, takeaway items. However, in between these two extremes, the results show no potential for offline price premiums. Drawing on price fairness theory, we further explore consumer responses to higher offline prices in three experimental studies. In contrast with the assumptions of price fairness theory, the provision of purchase advisory services and communication of the price motive hardly stimulate consumer acceptance of higher offline prices in our context. However, the findings reveal important heterogeneity in consumer responses depending on their market segment, because some market segments indeed respond less negatively to higher offline prices. In addition, consumers accept offline price premiums for unplanned purchases.     

Why we watch others' responses to online advertising – investigating users' motivations for viewing user-generated content in the context of online advertising

The study investigates Internet users' motivations for viewing user-generated content (UGC) in the context of online advertising. In addition, it is examined whether individual motivation patterns can be traced back to users' personalities and their attitudes toward advertising in general. An online survey of 181 social media users was conducted, surveying users' motivation, personality (big five), and attitude toward advertising in general. Path analysis was employed to examine the research model. The use of UGC was motivated by needs for information, entertainment, personal identity, and social interaction. While personality did not predict users' motives, their attitudes towards advertising in general explained individual motivation patterns to a large extent. It was consequently proposed and confirmed that users' motives mediate the influence of recipients' general attitude toward advertising on UGC usage. Results indicated a strong effective potential for UGC in online advertising: users view such content expressly to be influenced by others fulfilling their needs for information, personal identity and social interaction. Firms may lose some of their ability to precisely control brand messages when advertising in social media.     

Adworld2007 published online advertising market monitoring and the latest audience measurement date

9月27日．历时三天、备受业界瞩目的2007中国互联网大会圆满落下帷幕。其间9月25、26日．Adworld2007中国网络广告与互动营销年会隆重举行。与诸多行业交流会议有所不同的是．主办方在DCCI互联网数据中心支持之下．发布了2007年网络广告市场监测与受众测量阶段性的最新调研数据，为参会各方、互联网与网络广告业界的交流互动．提供了立体多维的观察视角和判断依据。本刊特选出几组最新调研成果．以飨读者。[第一段]     

The Chinese Exhibition IndustryFaces the WTO

On Nov. 15, 1999, China and the USsigned an agreement on market accessconcerning China's entry into the WorldTrade Organization (WTO) in Beijing.Different people have different ideason the advantages and disadvantages ofChina's entry into the WTO. Most people believe that it will do more good thanharm. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages.What factors hinder China's ability tocompete in the world exhibitionmarket?I. The great disparity between theexpertise at home and abroadOveral…     

Social media or shopping websites? The influence of eWOM on consumers’ online purchase intentions

This study empirically tests and compares the influence of friends’ recommendations on social media and anonymous reviews on shopping websites in the context of online purchase intention. For this purpose, we analyse the impacts of these two platforms based on the components of information adoption model (IAM) which are borrowed as information quality, information credibility, information usefulness and information adoption. We conduct a survey and find anonymous reviews as more influential on consumer’ online purchase intentions than friends’ recommendations on social media. However, as this result was contrary to that expected, we conduct another study through in-depth interviews in order to enlighten our results found in the first study. In Study 2, we find the reasons why consumers prefer anonymous reviews rather than friends’ recommendations. Information quantity, information readiness, detailed information and dedicated information are factors which make shopping websites superior than social media in terms of the impact of electronic word of mouth (eWOM). Academic and managerial implications are discussed.     

The Retrospect of Partenariat and the Achievements

Since 1997 to 2000, CCPIT has organized domestic enterprises to participate in 7 Partenariats in Europe for 4 successive years, 146 Chinese enterprises had conducted598 rounds of business negotiations, and had reached53 cooperative agreements     

The Development in the Coming 3 Decades

On June 25,2008,Summit Fo- rum on the Development in the Coming 3 Decades,hosted by China Business Press and sponsored by BMW Brilliance,was held in Beijing Great Wall Sheraton Hotel. World known economists and entrepre- neurs gathered together to review the ex- perience of China's thirty years of reform and opening up as well as to explore the driving force of China's future develop- ment.China's five famous economists,as     

The Recipe for the Perfect Review?

Online product reviews, originally intended to reduce consumers’ pre-purchase search and evaluation costs, have become so numerous that they are now themselves a source for information overload. To help consumers find high-quality reviews faster, review rankings based on consumers’ evaluations of their helpfulness were introduced. But many reviews are never evaluated and never ranked. Moreover, current helpfulness-based systems provide little or no advice to reviewers on how to write more helpful reviews. Average review quality and consumer search costs could be much improved if these issues were solved. This requires identifying the determinants of review helpfulness, which we carry out based on an adaption of Wang and Strong’s well-known data quality framework. Our empirical analysis shows that review helpfulness is influenced not only by single-review features but also by contextual factors expressing review value relative to all available reviews. Reviews for experiential goods differ systematically from reviews for utilitarian goods. Our findings, based on 27,104 reviews from Amazon.com across six product categories, form the basis for estimating preliminary helpfulness scores for unrated reviews and for developing interactive, personalized review writing support tools.     

The Chinese Exhibition Industry Faces the WTO

What kinds of preparation should theChinese exhibition industry make?I. Being aware of one's survival anddevelopment in competitionIt's unrealistic that we depend on ourgovernment's protection or establishment of barriers; at the same time competition will put us under great pressureto stimulate our vigor and vitality. Weare sure to find our advantages and disadvantages from the competition to improve ourselves continuously to reachthe world exhibition standard. On theother hand, we shall not…     

The Power of the ＂Made-In-China＂

Industries are the engines of the economic growth. China＇s industries continued to evolve and diversify in 2010. There were hope, and there were pains. But all the industries in this country have a dream： to do better in the global market.     

The Trends of the International Arbitration Development

The international arbitration, as a kind of the methods to resolve the disputes in the international society, is flourished in recent years. On the basis of the international arbitration's features, the jurisdiction to relevant to the political issues is omission in the session of the disputes. Increasing of the disputes express to the globalization of the economy in the world. Not only do the position of the arbitration and the parties of the cases come from the region, but also the Europe as the traditional arbitration center, replaced by the Pacific/Asia region. The reason of the trend developing for the international arbitration results from the international arbitration's feature- the forum is neutral, treaty ensures enforcement abroad and no appeal, limited discover. Less time consuming, greater degree of the voluntary compliance, procedure is less costly and the result are more predictable.