Electronic Commerce Research and Applications最新文献

We propose metaverse as a medium for customer brand active engagement and for stimulating the purchase intentions towards a brand in real world. The participants recruited for the study were Gen Z respondents who are the main adopters of metaverse. ‘Nikeland’ in Roblox (one of the successful early versions of metaverse) was chosen as the experiential space for the participants. The results indicated that the new age consumers are looking forward to metaverse as futuristic technology platform and reported that interactivity (user active control, two-way communication, synchronicity) in the metaverse world positively impacts the consumers’ experience of brand trust, brand knowledge and brand attachment which in turn impact the brand active engagement leading to ‘consumer purchase intention of the product experienced in metaverse’ in the real world. The marketers and advertisers can engage customers in metaverse through initiatives like Digital bill boards, NFTs, virtual events, virtual tours, virtual avatars and virtual stores.

In the face of the increasing influence of online celebrity live streaming and online consumer reviews in present e-commerce environment, the purpose of this paper is to examine how online celebrities’ information source characteristics and review helpfulness affect online consumers' perceived value and purchase intentions. Besides, we try to explore the impact of consistency and product type on consumers. Based on the SOR model, two studies were conducted to achieve these goals. Study 1 collects data by means of a questionnaire and conducts structural equation modeling. The empirical results of 491 questionnaires indicate that credibility, professionalism, and attraction of online celebrities and content, quality, and popularity of review helpfulness positively affect perceived value. Perceived value, in turn, influences purchase intention. Study 2 introduced the concept of consistency and designed a 2 × 2 scenario test with it and product type. The results of 356 questionnaires showed that consistency promotes consumers' purchase intention, with perceived value mediating and product type moderating the effect. The findings have important implications for the development of e-commerce and provide some additions to research in this area.

Purpose

To understand how users of online marketplaces process market signals in their decision making and whether this depends on if the good is of high or low involvement.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper employs a mixed methods approach. Study 1 draws on an analysis of interviews with online marketplace users using hypothetical eBay purchases as stimuli, understanding how users conceptualize specific market signals and whether their importance varies depending on the type of purchase (high versus low involvement good). Study 2 tests hypotheses derived from signaling theory, using an eye tracking experiment.

Findings

Price and photographs act as “fast and frugal” signals for inclusion in consideration sets for low involvement purchases, but consumers deem them insufficient for high involvement purchases where high-cost signals that help establish seller credibility are far more salient. Users pay relatively greater attention to costly market signals, which are beyond sellers’ direct control, for high involvement goods.

Practical implications

The paper offers insights for sellers regarding the presentation of quality cues and strategies online marketplaces can employ to reduce information asymmetry.

Originality/value

Drawing on and extending signaling theory, the paper introduces and confirms hypotheses for understanding users’ attention to market signals when making purchase decisions on online marketplaces. It identifies how the degree of involvement of a product affects the processing of market signals.

Virtual agents, a prevalent application of artificial intelligence, significantly enhance e-commerce customer service (i.e., online interactions that address customers’ concerns). This creates an innovative service model aiming to meet diverse customer demands and create value for enterprises. However, understanding the factors driving the performance of virtual agents, especially in terms of service quality, remains a gap. Expanding the fit-viability model (FVM), this study investigates the drivers and mechanisms influencing virtual agents’ service quality, considering the matching of technology, service scenarios, and individual readiness. Surveying 399 respondents experienced in virtual agent service within e-commerce, the findings reveal that personalization negatively impacts response speed but positively influences response accuracy. Technology readiness positively affects convenience and accessibility. Overall, service quality is positively influenced by response speed, response accuracy, convenience, and accessibility. This study extends the fit-viability model to virtual agent service literature, providing practitioners with a fresh perspective to enhance e-commerce customer service.

This study presents new empirical evidence regarding the impact of e-commerce adoption on employment in Colombia, a developing economy. We use firm-level data from the Annual Manufacturing Survey between 2013 and 2018 and differentiate the workforce by skill level and type of contract. We also use multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) to construct a parsimonious set of instrumental variables to account for the endogeneity of e-commerce. Our main finding is that an increase of 1% in the degree of e-commerce penetration increases demand for skilled workers by 0.2% and does not have a negative impact in the demand for unskilled workers. We then delve deep into the evidence and test for complementarity or substitution between skilled labor and ICT capital related to e-commerce implementation by employing a new and specific theoretical framework, which is empirically assessed. Our results confirm that highly skilled workers benefit the most from the introduction of e-commerce and its associated ICTs into a company, exhibiting a high degree of complementarity compared to unskilled workers. Thus, our findings support the hypothesis that ICT utilization and e-commerce adoption lead to labor substitution, particularly for low skill workers. This study recommends that policymakers invest in skill development to meet e-commerce demands, focusing on both upskilling workers to enhance digital literacy and implementing targeted support programs for a smooth transition to the digital economy across all skill levels.

In today’s digital environment, influencer marketing has been established as an essential and powerful tool in promoting meaningful engagement between brands and consumers. Rooted in Social Identity Theory and Trust Transfer Theory, this study investigates how the image transfer from the influencers to the platform and product plays a critical role in boosting online user engagement with short video endorsement content. Empirically tested with 801 TikTok users, the findings reveal that the positive image of the influencer transfers to platform and product images, and show how the platform’s positive image further enhances the positive image of the endorsed product. Notably, influencer popularity serves as a moderator, intensifying image transfer effects for highly popular influencers. These mechanisms, in turn, influence online engagement intentions and such behaviors as affection, conscious attention, social connection, and enthused participation. The study presents profound theoretical and practical implications, empowering marketers to optimize influencer strategies for success in the dynamic digital landscape.

Bilibili, has given rise to a large number of advertising videos, which users tend to avoid. This study uses Bilibili’s video advertisements as the main research object and builds an advertising avoidance model based on a questionnaire survey guided by the S-O-R model framework. The study finds that perceived consistency plays an important role in advertising avoidance behavior, with perceived usefulness negatively influencing users’ perceived goal impediments and negative affective tendencies. Perceived entertainment negatively influences users’ perceived goal impediments and negative affective tendencies. Perceived goal impediment and negative affective tendencies positively influence users' tendencies to avoid advertising and play a mediating role in the influence of perceived usefulness, entertainment, and consistency on avoidance tendencies. Based on these findings, this study provides suggestions for promoting the effectiveness of advertising from the perspectives of user experience, information usefulness, entertainment value, and advertising consistency.

Food contamination may have a catastrophic effect on companies, causing a plunge in goodwill. Motivated by the practice that existing voluntary recall strategies still suffer from untimeliness and imprecision, we consider blockchain to provide technical support for food traceability and recall by improving supply chain traceability and transparency. We focus on a two-tier food supply chain facing potential contamination occurrences and build a piecewise deterministic differential game model. We then obtain the optimal strategies of firms and evaluate the impact of contamination events on the dynamic operations of the supply chain. The results show increased contamination likelihood and damage rate, which harm the goodwill of food and optimal decision-making. In addition, we obtain the conditions for the company to be profitable when implementing the blockchain, which is closely related to contamination source identification time, recall efficiency, damage rate, and blockchain cost. Finally, we evaluate several specific cases.

Given the increasing popularity of livestreaming and agricultural e-commerce, it is important to understand what influences knowledge sharing among competing local farmer-livestreamers. Using ordinal logistic regression and agent-based modeling, we examine several drivers of livestreaming knowledge sharing in an agricultural cluster. Our results show that peer effects and peer interaction can speed up knowledge sharing among local farmer-livestreamers. Furthermore, regional knowledge-sharing activities organized by local governments can meaningfully motivate farmer-livestreamers to share their livestreaming skills and knowledge. To promote knowledge sharing in agricultural clusters, local governments also can use communication platforms and education to change the idea of some farmer-livestreamers that knowledge sharing only benefits their local competitors. Highlighting several drivers for the evolution of livestreaming knowledge sharing, our study provides a theoretical basis for leveraging knowledge sharing to enhance the competitiveness of agricultural clusters in cyberspace.

In the context of the digital economy, online retailers are faced with increasing competition and seek to improve sales and attract consumers through innovations such as recommender systems. This paper investigates the strategies for adopting recommender systems by online retailers, introducing a theoretical model to assess whether both incumbent and new entrant retailers should adopt these systems. The model conducts a comparative analysis, factoring in consumers’ search costs and the strategic choices of competitors. It establishes equilibrium outcomes for four distinct scenarios, followed by an analysis of the interplay between the strategy selection decisions of the two types of retailers. The results show that if one retailer does not adopt the system, the other retailer should always adopt it. However, when one retailer has already implemented the system, the other retailer should only do so if the search cost is relatively low and the recommendation cost is high, but not when the search cost is moderate. Given two retailers’ strategies, we identify the requirements that form two equilibriums: both retailers adopting the system, or only the incumbent retailer adopting it. Furthermore, the recommendation levels and product prices are not necessarily in a monotonic relationship with the cost of the system.