Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10864415.2021.2010004
Jonathan E. Jackson, Xun Xu
ABSTRACT The number of shopping options for consumers in the e-commerce retail environment continues to expand. One such option allows consumers to try products at home before committing to purchase, referred to as the Try-Before-You-Buy (TBYB) model. This study examines the role of scarcity in affecting consumers’ product acceptance intention. Our results reveal that product scarcity increases both consumers’ perceived utilitarian value and hedonic value, which enhance their product acceptance intention in the TBYB model. Additionally, we find that price scarcity also stimulates consumers’ product acceptance intention, but channel scarcity does not. Furthermore, we find that a high hassle cost does not necessarily increase consumers’ passive acceptance intention of products in the TBYB model. Our findings provide implications for TBYB retailers to enhance consumers’ intention to accept products through advertising the scarcity of their products and price, improving both the utilitarian values and hedonic values of their product offerings, but not setting obstacles for consumers to return their products. This study helps companies understand consumers’ perception in the TBYB model, which is critical to improving overall performance. This study also contributes to uniqueness theory by revealing that the effect of scarcity on consumers’ perceived uniqueness is not uniform. Scarcity in product acquisition and scarcity in payment have a higher impact on consumers’ perceived uniqueness than the scarcity of process in terms of the channel in which consumers use to acquire the products.
在电子商务零售环境下,消费者的购物选择不断扩大。其中一种选择允许消费者在购买之前在家试用产品,这被称为“购买前试用”(try - before - you - buy, TBYB)模式。本研究探讨稀缺性对消费者产品接受意愿的影响。研究结果表明,在TBYB模型中,产品稀缺性增加了消费者感知的功利价值和享乐价值,从而增强了消费者的产品接受意愿。此外,我们发现价格稀缺性也会刺激消费者的产品接受意愿,但渠道稀缺性不会。此外,我们发现在TBYB模式下,高麻烦成本并不一定会增加消费者对产品的被动接受意愿。我们的研究结果为TBYB零售商提供了启示,即通过宣传其产品的稀缺性和价格来提高消费者接受产品的意愿,提高其产品的功利价值和享乐价值,但不为消费者退货设置障碍。本研究有助于企业了解消费者对TBYB模型的看法,这对提高整体绩效至关重要。本研究还揭示了稀缺性对消费者感知独特性的影响并不均匀,从而为独特性理论做出了贡献。产品获取的稀缺性和支付的稀缺性对消费者感知独特性的影响高于消费者获取产品渠道的过程稀缺性。
{"title":"Does Scarcity Add Value in Influencing Consumers in the Try-Before-You-Buy Model?","authors":"Jonathan E. Jackson, Xun Xu","doi":"10.1080/10864415.2021.2010004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10864415.2021.2010004","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The number of shopping options for consumers in the e-commerce retail environment continues to expand. One such option allows consumers to try products at home before committing to purchase, referred to as the Try-Before-You-Buy (TBYB) model. This study examines the role of scarcity in affecting consumers’ product acceptance intention. Our results reveal that product scarcity increases both consumers’ perceived utilitarian value and hedonic value, which enhance their product acceptance intention in the TBYB model. Additionally, we find that price scarcity also stimulates consumers’ product acceptance intention, but channel scarcity does not. Furthermore, we find that a high hassle cost does not necessarily increase consumers’ passive acceptance intention of products in the TBYB model. Our findings provide implications for TBYB retailers to enhance consumers’ intention to accept products through advertising the scarcity of their products and price, improving both the utilitarian values and hedonic values of their product offerings, but not setting obstacles for consumers to return their products. This study helps companies understand consumers’ perception in the TBYB model, which is critical to improving overall performance. This study also contributes to uniqueness theory by revealing that the effect of scarcity on consumers’ perceived uniqueness is not uniform. Scarcity in product acquisition and scarcity in payment have a higher impact on consumers’ perceived uniqueness than the scarcity of process in terms of the channel in which consumers use to acquire the products.","PeriodicalId":13928,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Electronic Commerce","volume":"26 1","pages":"25 - 48"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41906230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10864415.2021.2010007
Xumei Zhang, Xiaoyu Zha, Haiyue Zhang, B. Dan
ABSTRACT This study explores the optimal information-sharing strategy in a cross-border e-commerce supply chain with uncertain tax rates, in which an overseas manufacturer invests in product quality and a cross-border e-retailer holds private demand information. By establishing a game-theoretical model, we investigate the e-retailer’s motivation for sharing information with the overseas manufacturer and further explore the role of information sharing under tax uncertainty. Our results show that when quality elasticity is high, the e-retailer chooses to share its information voluntarily. However, under medium quality elasticity, the e-retailer shares information voluntarily only when the probability of the high tax rate is below a certain threshold. Moreover, the e-retailer could be more likely to share information under higher tax uncertainty. When quality elasticity is low, the e-retailer is unwilling to share information, but the overseas manufacturer can design a contract to incentivize the e-retailer to share information to realize a win–win outcome. Finally, we reveal that information sharing can mitigate the negative effect of tax fluctuation on the e-retailer’s profit. These findings provide useful implications for cross-border e-retailers on how to formulate information-sharing strategies under tax uncertainty arising from trade policy adjustment. Our study also supplements the information-sharing literature by discussing tax uncertainty, which is an important factor affecting the operation of cross-border e-commerce supply chain.
{"title":"Information Sharing in a Cross-Border E-Commerce Supply Chain Under Tax Uncertainty","authors":"Xumei Zhang, Xiaoyu Zha, Haiyue Zhang, B. Dan","doi":"10.1080/10864415.2021.2010007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10864415.2021.2010007","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study explores the optimal information-sharing strategy in a cross-border e-commerce supply chain with uncertain tax rates, in which an overseas manufacturer invests in product quality and a cross-border e-retailer holds private demand information. By establishing a game-theoretical model, we investigate the e-retailer’s motivation for sharing information with the overseas manufacturer and further explore the role of information sharing under tax uncertainty. Our results show that when quality elasticity is high, the e-retailer chooses to share its information voluntarily. However, under medium quality elasticity, the e-retailer shares information voluntarily only when the probability of the high tax rate is below a certain threshold. Moreover, the e-retailer could be more likely to share information under higher tax uncertainty. When quality elasticity is low, the e-retailer is unwilling to share information, but the overseas manufacturer can design a contract to incentivize the e-retailer to share information to realize a win–win outcome. Finally, we reveal that information sharing can mitigate the negative effect of tax fluctuation on the e-retailer’s profit. These findings provide useful implications for cross-border e-retailers on how to formulate information-sharing strategies under tax uncertainty arising from trade policy adjustment. Our study also supplements the information-sharing literature by discussing tax uncertainty, which is an important factor affecting the operation of cross-border e-commerce supply chain.","PeriodicalId":13928,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Electronic Commerce","volume":"26 1","pages":"123 - 146"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45577734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10864415.2021.2010002
Vladimir Zwass
The two papers opening this issue of IJEC investigate the operation of the relatively new modes of consumer-oriented e-commerce. The first of them studies the effectiveness of advertisements over the voice interface of smart speakers. The authors, Kyuhong Park, Yongjin Park, Junyeong Lee, Jae-Hyeon Ahn, and Dongyeon Kim, base their research in the conversational commerce conducted through Amazon Alexa. They study empirically how the voice ads lead (or do not) to brand and product recognition in the context of the specific features of the voice interface. In two lab experiments, the authors offer an early assessment of this rapidly growing ad medium. Among the findings is the prominent role of interactivity and contextual relevance offered by the medium. As the data are accumulated through billions of interactions a day, machine learning techniques will further increase the voice-ad effectiveness and will aim to decrease the annoyance the consumer may experience. Broader empirics with much more data will support further research of the conversational medium. E-retail is inherently limited by the absence of the direct experience with the product. Or is it? Online retailers have been trying to narrow the gap between the virtuality and the physicality of consumers’ experience with the products. One of the newer business models is Try-Before-You-Buy (TBYB), which in its several varieties allows the consumer to experience the delivered product before committing to a purchase. Obviously, high rates of product returns can undercut the profitability. Increasing the product-acceptance intention of the consumer is a key to the financial performance of the model. Here, Jonathan E. Jackson and Xun Xu study empirically the influence of scarcity on the consumers’ intention to try products under the TBYB model. Basing themselves in the uniqueness theory, the researchers consider scarcity as a multidimensional construct, taking in product, price, and channel scarcity. In their empirically grounded findings of the differential effects of the various aspects of scarcity, the authors are contributing to the scarcity theory and are in a position to offer advice to the retailers adopting the new business model. The postadoption abandonment of software apps is of concern from an economic point of view, as well as on the considerations of organizational dynamics when it occurs in such a collective setting. A nuanced understanding of the motivators of such abandonment is needed. In the next paper, Brent Furneaux and Lars Rieser ground themselves in the fourdrive model of individual motivation to investigate why people abandon the successfully adopted apps. Using a large archival data set, the authors test their hypotheses and recognize several barriers to application abandonment. The results will serve to identify the opportunities for abandonment prevention, as well as contributing to the expansion of the motivation research.
{"title":"Editor’s Introduction","authors":"Vladimir Zwass","doi":"10.1080/10864415.2021.2010002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10864415.2021.2010002","url":null,"abstract":"The two papers opening this issue of IJEC investigate the operation of the relatively new modes of consumer-oriented e-commerce. The first of them studies the effectiveness of advertisements over the voice interface of smart speakers. The authors, Kyuhong Park, Yongjin Park, Junyeong Lee, Jae-Hyeon Ahn, and Dongyeon Kim, base their research in the conversational commerce conducted through Amazon Alexa. They study empirically how the voice ads lead (or do not) to brand and product recognition in the context of the specific features of the voice interface. In two lab experiments, the authors offer an early assessment of this rapidly growing ad medium. Among the findings is the prominent role of interactivity and contextual relevance offered by the medium. As the data are accumulated through billions of interactions a day, machine learning techniques will further increase the voice-ad effectiveness and will aim to decrease the annoyance the consumer may experience. Broader empirics with much more data will support further research of the conversational medium. E-retail is inherently limited by the absence of the direct experience with the product. Or is it? Online retailers have been trying to narrow the gap between the virtuality and the physicality of consumers’ experience with the products. One of the newer business models is Try-Before-You-Buy (TBYB), which in its several varieties allows the consumer to experience the delivered product before committing to a purchase. Obviously, high rates of product returns can undercut the profitability. Increasing the product-acceptance intention of the consumer is a key to the financial performance of the model. Here, Jonathan E. Jackson and Xun Xu study empirically the influence of scarcity on the consumers’ intention to try products under the TBYB model. Basing themselves in the uniqueness theory, the researchers consider scarcity as a multidimensional construct, taking in product, price, and channel scarcity. In their empirically grounded findings of the differential effects of the various aspects of scarcity, the authors are contributing to the scarcity theory and are in a position to offer advice to the retailers adopting the new business model. The postadoption abandonment of software apps is of concern from an economic point of view, as well as on the considerations of organizational dynamics when it occurs in such a collective setting. A nuanced understanding of the motivators of such abandonment is needed. In the next paper, Brent Furneaux and Lars Rieser ground themselves in the fourdrive model of individual motivation to investigate why people abandon the successfully adopted apps. Using a large archival data set, the authors test their hypotheses and recognize several barriers to application abandonment. The results will serve to identify the opportunities for abandonment prevention, as well as contributing to the expansion of the motivation research.","PeriodicalId":13928,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Electronic Commerce","volume":"26 1","pages":"1 - 2"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49550799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10864415.2021.2010005
Brent Furneaux, Lars Rieser
ABSTRACT Abandonment of software applications can result in significant loses of organizational resources while also undermining the continued success of application developers, vendors, and software support ecosystems. Relatively little attention, however, has been directed toward understanding application abandonment that occurs after applications have been successfully adopted, despite the potentially far-reaching implications of such abandonment and the growing economic and social importance of software applications. We therefore developed a framework based on the four-drives model of motivation to better understand postadoption abandonment decisions and conducted an archival study to test our proposed framework in a hedonically oriented personal-use context. Results of this study suggest that individual motivations to acquire status and experience, bond with others, comprehend and grow, and defend their efforts all have significant implications for the likelihood of application abandonment. Specifically, application-related use activity, in-application user interaction, application complexity, and application commitments were all found to significantly diminish the likelihood of application abandonment.
{"title":"User Motivation in Application Abandonment: A Four-Drives Model","authors":"Brent Furneaux, Lars Rieser","doi":"10.1080/10864415.2021.2010005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10864415.2021.2010005","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Abandonment of software applications can result in significant loses of organizational resources while also undermining the continued success of application developers, vendors, and software support ecosystems. Relatively little attention, however, has been directed toward understanding application abandonment that occurs after applications have been successfully adopted, despite the potentially far-reaching implications of such abandonment and the growing economic and social importance of software applications. We therefore developed a framework based on the four-drives model of motivation to better understand postadoption abandonment decisions and conducted an archival study to test our proposed framework in a hedonically oriented personal-use context. Results of this study suggest that individual motivations to acquire status and experience, bond with others, comprehend and grow, and defend their efforts all have significant implications for the likelihood of application abandonment. Specifically, application-related use activity, in-application user interaction, application complexity, and application commitments were all found to significantly diminish the likelihood of application abandonment.","PeriodicalId":13928,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Electronic Commerce","volume":"26 1","pages":"49 - 89"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49223792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10864415.2021.2010006
Tuan Nguyen, P. Hsu
ABSTRACT To what extent should firms invest in personalized recommendation mechanisms, and are all personalized recommendations equally welcomed by online consumers? To answer these questions through the lens of resource matching theory, we investigate users’ perceptions of three types of personalized recommendations: one-to-all (nonpersonalized), one-to-many (partially personalized), and one-to-one (most personalized). Using both experimental and configurational analysis approaches, our study posits that online consumers differently experience each type of personalized recommendation and their resource matching sources (familiarity, complexity, external information) in various shopping contexts. Our study abductively formulates several theoretical propositions regarding the usefulness of each personalized recommendation. We show empirical evidence that the most personalized recommendation is not always perceived to be as useful as conventionally believed. In particular, highly personalized recommendation is found to be useful for recommending simple technology products for experienced customers. Ironically, a partially personalized recommendation, one-to-many, is perceived as the most useful mechanism for recommending complicated technology products. Based on our findings, we suggest that e-commerce vendors consider the three resource matching dimensions to avoid collecting more than enough customer data, thus enabling adequately personalized recommendation results on their online digital platforms.
{"title":"More Personalized, More Useful? Reinvestigating Recommendation Mechanisms in E-Commerce","authors":"Tuan Nguyen, P. Hsu","doi":"10.1080/10864415.2021.2010006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10864415.2021.2010006","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT To what extent should firms invest in personalized recommendation mechanisms, and are all personalized recommendations equally welcomed by online consumers? To answer these questions through the lens of resource matching theory, we investigate users’ perceptions of three types of personalized recommendations: one-to-all (nonpersonalized), one-to-many (partially personalized), and one-to-one (most personalized). Using both experimental and configurational analysis approaches, our study posits that online consumers differently experience each type of personalized recommendation and their resource matching sources (familiarity, complexity, external information) in various shopping contexts. Our study abductively formulates several theoretical propositions regarding the usefulness of each personalized recommendation. We show empirical evidence that the most personalized recommendation is not always perceived to be as useful as conventionally believed. In particular, highly personalized recommendation is found to be useful for recommending simple technology products for experienced customers. Ironically, a partially personalized recommendation, one-to-many, is perceived as the most useful mechanism for recommending complicated technology products. Based on our findings, we suggest that e-commerce vendors consider the three resource matching dimensions to avoid collecting more than enough customer data, thus enabling adequately personalized recommendation results on their online digital platforms.","PeriodicalId":13928,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Electronic Commerce","volume":"26 1","pages":"90 - 122"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49283811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10864415.2021.2010003
Kyuhong Park, Yongjin Park, Junyeong Lee, Jae-Hyeon Ahn, Dongyeon Kim
ABSTRACT Smart speakers enable communication through a voice interface and are among the fastest growing consumer technologies globally; they provide a new and innovative medium for the delivery of interactive advertisements and the sale of products, known as “conversational commerce.” However, despite the promising potential of the use of smart speakers as a new advertising channel, little is known about the effectiveness of advertisements made through this medium. Therefore, this article investigates how the distinctive features of smart speakers, namely, interactivity, talker variability, and contextual relevance, influence the effectiveness of advertisements. Through two experiments, we assess the recognition of advertisements for the measurement of advertisements effectiveness through smart speakers. The results of experiment 1 show that the brand and product recognition of advertisements in cases where smart speaker users interact with the advertisements is higher as compared to that of non-interactive advertisements. Experiment 2 further shows that contextual relevance increases the brand and product recognition of advertisement, while talker variability does not affect it. Thus, our findings reveal the nature of the voice interface and provide insights for effective business strategies for advertisements in conversational commerce.
{"title":"Alexa, Tell Me More! The Effectiveness of Advertisements through Smart Speakers","authors":"Kyuhong Park, Yongjin Park, Junyeong Lee, Jae-Hyeon Ahn, Dongyeon Kim","doi":"10.1080/10864415.2021.2010003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10864415.2021.2010003","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Smart speakers enable communication through a voice interface and are among the fastest growing consumer technologies globally; they provide a new and innovative medium for the delivery of interactive advertisements and the sale of products, known as “conversational commerce.” However, despite the promising potential of the use of smart speakers as a new advertising channel, little is known about the effectiveness of advertisements made through this medium. Therefore, this article investigates how the distinctive features of smart speakers, namely, interactivity, talker variability, and contextual relevance, influence the effectiveness of advertisements. Through two experiments, we assess the recognition of advertisements for the measurement of advertisements effectiveness through smart speakers. The results of experiment 1 show that the brand and product recognition of advertisements in cases where smart speaker users interact with the advertisements is higher as compared to that of non-interactive advertisements. Experiment 2 further shows that contextual relevance increases the brand and product recognition of advertisement, while talker variability does not affect it. Thus, our findings reveal the nature of the voice interface and provide insights for effective business strategies for advertisements in conversational commerce.","PeriodicalId":13928,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Electronic Commerce","volume":"26 1","pages":"3 - 24"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47363820","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10864415.2021.1967006
Shuxing Sun, Bin Zhang, Yiting Huang
ABSTRACT We investigate the design of online group buying considering consumer characteristics under two different supply chain structures. Under monopolistic retailing, the e-tailer sells products through individual buying and group buying options simultaneously. Under competitive retailing, two e-tailers sell products through individual buying and group buying options respectively. We employ a stylized game-theoretical model to investigate equilibrium pricing and group size threshold decisions under two supply chain structures, and characterize the e-tailer’s optimal supply chain structure as well as study its impacts on the manufacturer and consumers. We show that the e-tailer always prefers a relatively high (high or low) group size threshold in the monopolistic (competitive) supply chain. Moreover, we find that the e-tailer chooses the monopolistic or competitive supply chain structure depending on combined parameters. Consequently, the e-tailer’s optimal supply chain structure may lead to an all-win or all-loss situation for the manufacturer and consumers. Our results underscore the importance in pricing and threshold decisions for online group buying and provide managerial insights for the group buying industry.
{"title":"E-tailer’s supply chain structures in group buying: Monopolistic or competitive retailing?","authors":"Shuxing Sun, Bin Zhang, Yiting Huang","doi":"10.1080/10864415.2021.1967006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10864415.2021.1967006","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We investigate the design of online group buying considering consumer characteristics under two different supply chain structures. Under monopolistic retailing, the e-tailer sells products through individual buying and group buying options simultaneously. Under competitive retailing, two e-tailers sell products through individual buying and group buying options respectively. We employ a stylized game-theoretical model to investigate equilibrium pricing and group size threshold decisions under two supply chain structures, and characterize the e-tailer’s optimal supply chain structure as well as study its impacts on the manufacturer and consumers. We show that the e-tailer always prefers a relatively high (high or low) group size threshold in the monopolistic (competitive) supply chain. Moreover, we find that the e-tailer chooses the monopolistic or competitive supply chain structure depending on combined parameters. Consequently, the e-tailer’s optimal supply chain structure may lead to an all-win or all-loss situation for the manufacturer and consumers. Our results underscore the importance in pricing and threshold decisions for online group buying and provide managerial insights for the group buying industry.","PeriodicalId":13928,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Electronic Commerce","volume":"25 1","pages":"497 - 514"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41421191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10864415.2021.1967007
Yang Xu, Wen Song, Gongbing Bi, Qiang Zhou
ABSTRACT Crowdfunding has become an increasingly attractive way of financing for capital-constrained enterprises. It differs from traditional financing methods, such as bank credit and trade credit, along several dimensions. In this paper, we explore the threshold effect in crowdfunding from the perspective of dynamic investment behavior. Using the investment level data from a large crowdfunding website in China, we establish a panel threshold model. Specifically, we have the following three aspects of interesting findings. First, the number of investors will increase dramatically when the investment amount is close to the threshold. Second, the herding behavior before the threshold interval is more obvious than after that. Third, to explore the internal mechanism of the threshold effect, we deduce three impact factors: fundraising target, crowdfunding price, and fundraising duration. We find that the first two moderator factors above have positive moderating effects, while fundraising duration has the opposite one. Our results support the assumptions of return on investment and postponed decision making. Finally, we further conduct our analysis through a battery of robustness tests. Our study could help crowdfunding creators to better manage the threshold effect.
{"title":"Threshold Effect in Crowdfunding: Evidence from Investment-Level Data","authors":"Yang Xu, Wen Song, Gongbing Bi, Qiang Zhou","doi":"10.1080/10864415.2021.1967007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10864415.2021.1967007","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Crowdfunding has become an increasingly attractive way of financing for capital-constrained enterprises. It differs from traditional financing methods, such as bank credit and trade credit, along several dimensions. In this paper, we explore the threshold effect in crowdfunding from the perspective of dynamic investment behavior. Using the investment level data from a large crowdfunding website in China, we establish a panel threshold model. Specifically, we have the following three aspects of interesting findings. First, the number of investors will increase dramatically when the investment amount is close to the threshold. Second, the herding behavior before the threshold interval is more obvious than after that. Third, to explore the internal mechanism of the threshold effect, we deduce three impact factors: fundraising target, crowdfunding price, and fundraising duration. We find that the first two moderator factors above have positive moderating effects, while fundraising duration has the opposite one. Our results support the assumptions of return on investment and postponed decision making. Finally, we further conduct our analysis through a battery of robustness tests. Our study could help crowdfunding creators to better manage the threshold effect.","PeriodicalId":13928,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Electronic Commerce","volume":"25 1","pages":"416 - 439"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48028276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10864415.2021.1967004
Vladimir Zwass
The advent of the Internet into mass global use has empowered individuals in their roles as citizens, consumers, or just being themselves more fully. People ́s access to information exceeds the capabilities of the heads of state or industry captains of just a few decades ago. The ability to be social, albeit virtually, or to influence others via social media, exceed anything possible then. The transactional affordances within the broad realm of ecommerce have grown exponentially and are growing apace. Moreover, all these capabilities are becoming fully integrated on platforms commonly available throughout the world. The new habitus, norms, laws, and regulations are in statu nascendi. Our research explores the multisided outcomes and consequences of this transformation. One of the consequent phenomena is co-creation, defined as “the participation of consumers along with producers in the creation of value in the marketplace” ([3], p. 13). Access to open-source resources further enhances the ability of individuals to act as creators, designers, makers, citizen scientists, or ideators. To use just one very recent example, AlphaFold, a neural-network based system for predicting protein structure and thus its function, has been placed last month in the public domain by DeepMind (a Google company) [1]. This can enable qualified individuals to contribute to corporate efforts at a high intellectual level. Corporate access to such individuals vastly benefits the organizations that enable themselves to take advantage of it. The two principal categories of co-creation identified in [3] are the autonomous co-creation by individuals and communities, where the initiative and the agency rests with them, and company-sponsored co-creation, where the persons act at the behest of producers. When done properly, sponsored co-creation can vastly expand a firm’s organizational knowledge, contribute to its organizational learning, and enhance the flexibility of its human resource management. Among the great variety of broadly understood cocreation activities, company-sponsored online co-creation brainstorming (COCB) conducted on a firm’s site, is a frequent format of harnessing collective intelligence of outsiders on behalf of the corporate activities [2]. A range of motivators can serve to enhance the quantity and quality of contributions. Distinction is drawn between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, an important difference, although fuzzy at times (think of an individual’s learning by doing or acquiring a reputation by contributing). There exists a body of scholarship asserting the crowding out of the intrinsic motivation to co-create when extrinsic motivators, such as remunerations, are enacted by the sponsoring company. In the opening paper of the issue, Siddharth Baswani, Anthony M. Townsend, and Andy Luse study the impact of financial incentives on the participation intention in COCB, in a format of ongoing crowdsourcing sites sponsored by a company. The
{"title":"Editor’s Introduction","authors":"Vladimir Zwass","doi":"10.1080/10864415.2021.1967004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10864415.2021.1967004","url":null,"abstract":"The advent of the Internet into mass global use has empowered individuals in their roles as citizens, consumers, or just being themselves more fully. People ́s access to information exceeds the capabilities of the heads of state or industry captains of just a few decades ago. The ability to be social, albeit virtually, or to influence others via social media, exceed anything possible then. The transactional affordances within the broad realm of ecommerce have grown exponentially and are growing apace. Moreover, all these capabilities are becoming fully integrated on platforms commonly available throughout the world. The new habitus, norms, laws, and regulations are in statu nascendi. Our research explores the multisided outcomes and consequences of this transformation. One of the consequent phenomena is co-creation, defined as “the participation of consumers along with producers in the creation of value in the marketplace” ([3], p. 13). Access to open-source resources further enhances the ability of individuals to act as creators, designers, makers, citizen scientists, or ideators. To use just one very recent example, AlphaFold, a neural-network based system for predicting protein structure and thus its function, has been placed last month in the public domain by DeepMind (a Google company) [1]. This can enable qualified individuals to contribute to corporate efforts at a high intellectual level. Corporate access to such individuals vastly benefits the organizations that enable themselves to take advantage of it. The two principal categories of co-creation identified in [3] are the autonomous co-creation by individuals and communities, where the initiative and the agency rests with them, and company-sponsored co-creation, where the persons act at the behest of producers. When done properly, sponsored co-creation can vastly expand a firm’s organizational knowledge, contribute to its organizational learning, and enhance the flexibility of its human resource management. Among the great variety of broadly understood cocreation activities, company-sponsored online co-creation brainstorming (COCB) conducted on a firm’s site, is a frequent format of harnessing collective intelligence of outsiders on behalf of the corporate activities [2]. A range of motivators can serve to enhance the quantity and quality of contributions. Distinction is drawn between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, an important difference, although fuzzy at times (think of an individual’s learning by doing or acquiring a reputation by contributing). There exists a body of scholarship asserting the crowding out of the intrinsic motivation to co-create when extrinsic motivators, such as remunerations, are enacted by the sponsoring company. In the opening paper of the issue, Siddharth Baswani, Anthony M. Townsend, and Andy Luse study the impact of financial incentives on the participation intention in COCB, in a format of ongoing crowdsourcing sites sponsored by a company. The","PeriodicalId":13928,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Electronic Commerce","volume":"25 1","pages":"391 - 393"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47565958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10864415.2021.1967005
Chris Lazaris, P. Sarantopoulos, Adam P. Vrechopoulos, Georgios I. Doukidis
ABSTRACT We examine how the integration of retail channels affects crucial firm outcomes, such as customer satisfaction and loyalty intentions, with a particular focus on the impact of different levels of offline-to-online channel integration. Across three experimental studies, one of them in an operating physical store, accommodating comparisons of several omnichannel configurations, increasing the level of omnichannel integration positively influences customer satisfaction and loyalty intentions. Flow experience mediates the effects. The impact of increasing the level of omnichannel integration on customer satisfaction and loyalty intentions is more pronounced among consumers who perceive the channels as complementary and for consumers with a goal-directed shopping orientation. This article contributes to extant omnichannel literature by experimentally investigating the impact of increasing levels of omnichannel integration—as compared to adopting a binary, “either-or” approach—and by demonstrating that omnichannel retail environments provide a fertile ground for flow experiences in physical stores. Furthermore, this article establishes the role of perceived channel complementarity and shopping orientation as boundary conditions for the realization of flow in omnichannel retail environments.
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