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As an important form of the e-commerce industry, online group buying is under the spotlight from with two sides: cheaper price but longer waiting time. The purpose of this paper is to adequately investigate the interaction between saving and waiting time of group buying comprehensively.

To fill the research gap, the authors elaborate a dual-channel supply chain (SC) with regular retail (individual buying) and group-buying channel, and formulate the demand based on the consumer utility with the positive effect of saving money and the negative effect of wasting time.

The authors find that power structure only changes the optimal prices, instead of the waiting time. The selling price mainly influences consumer demands, instead of the price discount of group buying. The SC profits are only positive to the channel preference, and it is the decisive parameter of consumers' choice. The price sensitivity lays a more remarkable impact on the SC compared to the time sensitivity. Above all, the price is the main factor of group buying, instead of time.

These results underscore the improvement for the dual-channel SC of group buying, providing managerial insights for the group-buying industry.

Examines the behaviour of the industrial buyer, and studies the purchasing of reprographic equipment. Looks at straight replacement purchases, first time purchases, rebuys involving high cost equipment and rebuys due to dissatisfaction, in terms of a perceived risk model. Accepts that the industrial communications practitioner receives much less planning guidance than his consumer‐based counterpart. States current research is founded on the belief that a theory of communication appropriate to industrial buying must take on 6 main points – these are itemised and discussed. Discusses research design; research methodology; the determinants of perceived risk in industrial buying; risk handling behaviour in industrial buying; and a perceived risk model of buyer behaviour and its implications for competitive industrial marketing policy – all these are examined in great depth and each one given individual conclusions. Concludes that these examples by no means exhaust all the possible empirical bases from which industrial marketing policies may be devised, they serve to illustrate the way in which the model can be realistically applied to derive such competitive policies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the conditions under which small independent retailers can improve their business performance by adopting a merchandising information orientation and strategically integrating into retailer buying groups.

This study tests hypotheses using a hierarchical multiple regression model and data obtained from 241 supermarket retailers that are existing members of buying groups in Japan.

The results indicate that merchandising information orientation alone may not be a beneficial strategy for small independent retailers to improve their business performance; however, by combining a merchandising information strategy with strong strategic integration with a buying group, optimal benefits can be achieved.

The findings highlight the potential benefits small independent retailers can gain from buying groups when pursuing a merchandising information orientation, which may prompt such retailers to actively integrate the policies and activities of the buying group into their business strategy.

The authors conceptualise retailers’ merchandising information in a model that demonstrates the link between a firm’s information strategy and its performance from the perspective of resource-based theory. Thus, this study advances the knowledge of the strategic behaviours of small independent retailers and provides valuable information for buying groups in the retail sector.

The purpose of this article was to explore the influence of individual perception and social climate on consumer-initiated group-buying purchase decisions. An extended cross-level research model was used to explain how a new mechanism for purchasing through personal interactions could work.

This study utilised a questionnaire survey for data gathering. The subjects of the investigation were group-buying initiators. Hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) was used to experimentally examine the research hypotheses.

The empirical results of the study indicate that the social influence of critical mass can effectively promote positive attitudes and intentions towards consumer-initiated online group buying. An individuals' perception of an initiator's fairness influences their trust in the initiator. In addition, trust in the initiator can positively and significantly influence buyers' attitudes and intentions to online group buying.

Most previous studies on online group-buying focus on how social media influences group-buying behaviours. This study extends social media research by introducing an extended cross-level model to provide a comprehensive investigation into online-shopping. It is a preliminary attempt to systematically verify relationships at the individual and aggregate levels. The decision to group buying requires a relationship of trust to be formed before any transaction takes place, thereby increasing the intention to make a purchase. As a result, group buying is perceived as positive when interpersonal communication is very efficient, or when social influence is high.

The purpose of this paper is to identify whether altruistic motivation is a significant factor in online group buying and to examine the effects of altruistic and egotistic motivation on online group buying intention through the psychological processes of trust and satisfaction.

A field study on Ihergo (www.ihergo.com/) was chosen because it is the largest online group buying marketplace in Taiwan. An online survey method was used to collect data. Returned questionnaires numbered 302 responses with 20 incomplete data, resulting in 282 valid responses for data analysis. Collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The findings of the study shows that altruism is relevant to online group buying, and trust and satisfaction have significantly positive effects on online group buying intention. The results emphasize that altruism, reciprocity, and reputation of motivations are significantly positive predictors of trust. Altruism and reciprocity have significantly positive effects on satisfaction, whereas reputation does not.

Altruism, reciprocity, and reputation represent three key elements of online group buying behavior. Integration of the altruism, reciprocity, and reputation results in a better explanation on online group buying intention through the psychological process, trust, and satisfaction. This study extends the value of online group buying and sheds light on the potential effects of altruistic and egotistic motivation on online group buying intention.

Online group buying is more complex than individual online shopping and is not easy to fulfill customer requirements. To satisfy online group buying, e-vendors might provide altruistic activities, enhance reciprocal services and products, develop better reputation mechanisms, and present an easier approach to encourage online group buying on the web site.

To the best of the knowledge, this is first paper to examine the effects of altruism on online group buying. The contribution of this study draws attention to the altruistic value of electronic commerce, by theorizing and validating the effects of altruistic and egotistic motivation on online group buying intention through psychological processes (trust and satisfaction).

Social commerce using social media has been on the rapid increase. Among various social commerce models, group-buying has become the mainstream. There is a paucity of research related to how customers perceive value in group-buying situations. This paper aims to examine and analyze various factors that influence perceived customer value in group-buying.

Data were collected using a survey on customers who had purchased a restaurant service deal on a group-buying site. A partial least squares technique was used to estimate the model.

Results show that perceived customer value affects customers’ group buying intentions and that all four antecedents of perceived value (low price, valence of experience, trust in social media and reputation of the group-buying site) have a significant influence. Implications and further research directions are discussed at the end of the paper.

This study provides valuable strategic implications for social commerce firms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how online trust affects group shopping intention in the Ihergo web site.

Samples from the Ihergo web site were collected by mailing a questionnaire survey to those who agreed to participate.

Group‐buying operators need to understand their consumers and the scheduling shopping rules between internet shoppers and firms. Moreover, word‐of‐mouth (WOM) can be created online by offering web visitors the ability to access the opinions of satisfied customers.

An online business may adopt different methods to enhance its customer satisfaction level. When people enter a significant amount of personal data at a web site, they are typically reluctant to change vendors and enter the data again.

Customers view a group‐buying operator as a shopping expert, and expect that the group‐buying operator can handle shopping problems before a dispute occurs.

The findings of this study provide interesting insights for group‐buying operators interested in group‐buying commerce; consumers having a high level of interest in shopping possess a strong motivation and desire to interact with the group‐buying operator.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how perceived benefits, perceived risk, and trust influence Chinese consumers' online group buying organized by institutional initiators.

In total, 578 valid samples were collected via an online survey. Multiple regressions were used to test the research model.

The results show that three perceived benefits (price benefit, convenience benefit, and recreational benefit) and three factors that together represent trust of the initiator (perceived reputation, structural assurance, and website trustworthiness) significantly positively influence consumers' attitudes toward online group buying.

This study is the first one to specifically focus on how perceived benefits and perceived risks influence consumers' attitudes toward online group buying.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a secure mobile group-buying system for application on spontaneous group-buying websites.

The proposed mechanism uses the Schnorr digital signature technique.

The proposed scheme is able to satisfy many security requirements. The computation costs of each phase and party were also analyzed, and the communication cost of each phase was calculated.

The results indicate that the proposed scheme is suitable for real-world application.

For nanostores, striving to become the community group-buying leader is gaining prominence. This paper aims to construct Hotelling linear models to investigate whether nanostores should be registered as leaders and their decisions in a competitive environment.

This paper constructs three Hotelling linear models: neither nanostore registers as community leader, only one nanostore registers as community leader and both nanostores register as community leader. The competitive operation strategies of two general nanostores under three scenarios are solved.

The study finds that nanostores without a cost advantage may benefit from being the first leader. The nanostore's preferred decisions depend on the investment cost parameters of its own and competitors which may lead to market share competition. Furthermore, consumers' sensitivity to community group-buying service has a negative effect on nanostores' profit.

The study is one of the few to consider the competition between community leaders. Besides, the study considers that the utilities functions of consumers are concurrently impacted by the service decisions, along with the price in different nanostores. It can provide nanostores useful implications in the dynamic industry.