{"title":"EXPRESS: Designing Quality Certificates: Insights from eBay","authors":"Xiang Hui, Ginger Zhe Jin, Meng Liu","doi":"10.1177/00222437241270222","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Quality certification is a common tool to enhance trust in marketplaces. Should the certification be based on consumer reports, such as ratings, or administrative data on seller behavior, such as the number of seller-initiated cancellations? In theory, incorporating consumer reports makes the quality certificate more relevant for consumer experience but may discourage seller effort, because consumer reports can be driven by factors not entirely within sellers’ control. Alternatively, using administrative data makes the certification more controllable by sellers, but these data track only a subset of seller behavior and may not be fully aligned with consumer experience. To answer the above question, we study a major redesign of eBay’s quality certification that removed most consumer reports from its criteria and added administrative data. This change motivates seller effort in dimensions highlighted by the new criteria, as well as allowing sellers to more precisely target their effort at the threshold. Buyers place a higher value on the quality certificate and are more likely to purchase again on the platform in markets where administrative data are more correlated with consumer reports. Lastly, the proportion of certified sellers becomes more homogenized across markets, and sales seem to become more concentrated towards large sellers.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Marketing Research","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241270222","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Quality certification is a common tool to enhance trust in marketplaces. Should the certification be based on consumer reports, such as ratings, or administrative data on seller behavior, such as the number of seller-initiated cancellations? In theory, incorporating consumer reports makes the quality certificate more relevant for consumer experience but may discourage seller effort, because consumer reports can be driven by factors not entirely within sellers’ control. Alternatively, using administrative data makes the certification more controllable by sellers, but these data track only a subset of seller behavior and may not be fully aligned with consumer experience. To answer the above question, we study a major redesign of eBay’s quality certification that removed most consumer reports from its criteria and added administrative data. This change motivates seller effort in dimensions highlighted by the new criteria, as well as allowing sellers to more precisely target their effort at the threshold. Buyers place a higher value on the quality certificate and are more likely to purchase again on the platform in markets where administrative data are more correlated with consumer reports. Lastly, the proportion of certified sellers becomes more homogenized across markets, and sales seem to become more concentrated towards large sellers.
期刊介绍:
JMR is written for those academics and practitioners of marketing research who need to be in the forefront of the profession and in possession of the industry"s cutting-edge information. JMR publishes articles representing the entire spectrum of research in marketing. The editorial content is peer-reviewed by an expert panel of leading academics. Articles address the concepts, methods, and applications of marketing research that present new techniques for solving marketing problems; contribute to marketing knowledge based on the use of experimental, descriptive, or analytical techniques; and review and comment on the developments and concepts in related fields that have a bearing on the research industry and its practices.