Search results

In online exchange platforms' sponsored search advertising, the array of product quality signals within a keyword search results list plays a crucial role in shaping buyers' purchasing decisions. This research seeks to explore the impact of various quality signals – namely, ranking position, seller reputation and product price – on ad clicks. Additionally, it examines the role of keyword attributes, such as specificity and popularity, in modulating the effects of these quality signals on advertising clicks.

A total of 5,763 effective data points were collected from a leading B2B electronic platform company, and we employed negative binomial regression with Heckman correction methods to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that in online exchange platforms, search ad clicks are significantly and positively affected by displayed signals such as ranking position, seller reputation and product price information. Notably, a U-shaped relationship emerges between product price and ad clicks. Furthermore, keyword specificity and popularity distinctly moderate the impact of these displayed signals on ad clicks within online exchange platforms.

This paper addresses the gap in existing research on search advertising by methodically analyzing the impact of various signals displayed in search results and how keyword attributes moderate ad clicks, all through a signaling theory lens.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the practices that owners of public profiles in social networking sites can leverage to actively build online reputation and to evaluate the impact of the adoption of such practices on the initial formation of trust toward these individuals when they are presented as new virtual work partners.

A theoretical model was developed and an experiment with 233 participants was utilized to assess the model using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that individuals can build their online reputations in public profiles of social networking sites via a series of practices of self-disclosure of information and that the adoption of these practices has significant effects on the initial formation of trust toward the profile owner in virtual work contexts. Categorization mechanisms such as stereotyping, unit grouping and reputation categorization have been found to contribute to the initial formation of trust, both from an affect and cognition-based perspectives.

Little is known about the information disclosure practices in public profiles of social networking sites that new work partners can adopt to facilitate the formation of trust between them before they start working together. This study has contributed to the existing body of literature by clarifying these practices and the relative importance of online reputation to the initial formation of trust during the outset of a new virtual work relationship.

This study investigates the influence of e-marketing risks on a Corporation’s Reputation (CR) resulting from its online marketing of products and services.

A comprehensive analysis was conducted to enhance the company’s e-marketing strategies and bolster its reputation in the market. This involved an investigation into key factors of e-marketing risks, such as customer confidence, product quality, marketing fraud, credibility and customer knowledge and proficiency in using online platforms. These factors have directly impacted the company’s reputation, including aspects such as product/service quality, attractiveness, performance and commitment to social responsibility.

Its finding indicates that customers' lack of confidence in e-marketing has a strong impact on CR, followed by product quality and credibility. The absence of consumer awareness about e-marketing websites and e-fraud frequently negatively affects the organizational reputation.

To enhance the corporation’s reputation, it is recommended that companies provide educational resources on online shopping, including guidance on using the company’s website, comparing prices and other services that facilitate online purchases. This will help to support the credibility of e-marketing and enhance customer trust.

This research is an exploration of how e-marketing has affected a Corporation’s Reputation. It provides modern knowledge about the dynamic interplay between digital strategies and brand perception. Investigating this relationship provides valuable insights into the evolving landscape of consumer trust in the digital age. By analysing the various ways in which e-marketing influences a company’s reputation, innovative approaches can be developed to enhance its online presence and build lasting customer trust.

Compared to traditional (domestic) e-commerce consumers, cross-border electronic commerce (CBEC) consumers may face greater information asymmetry in the CBEC purchase process. Given this background, however, the literature has paid limited attention to the informational antecedents that influence consumers' perceptions of transaction costs and their CBEC purchase intentions. To fill this gap, this study integrates the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and transaction cost theory (TCT) to develop a model for exploring how product (website informativeness, product diagnosticity and website interactivity as the central route) and external (country brand, website policy and vendor reputation as the peripheral route) informational antecedents affect consumers’ evaluations of transaction costs in terms of uncertainty and asset specificity and their CBEC purchase intentions.

This study employs a survey approach to validate the model with 766 Generation Z CBEC consumers based on judgment sampling. The partial least squares (PLS) technique is adopted for data analysis.

The results show that all the proposed central and peripheral informational antecedents reduce consumers’ perceptions of uncertainty and asset specificity, which in turn negatively influences their CBEC purchase intentions.

Through this investigation, this study increases our understanding of how product and external informational antecedents affect consumers’ evaluations of transaction costs, which subsequently determine their CBEC purchase decisions. This study offers theoretical contributions to existing CBEC research and has practical implications for CBEC organizations and managers.

This study examined the links between user-generated content (UGC), dissatisfied customers and second-hand luxury fashion brands. A central premise of luxury fashion brands is the perceived status and privilege of those who own such items. Despite their marketing logic emphasising exclusivity and rarity, they have broadened their reach by integrating new digital marketing practices that increase access to luxury brand-related information and create opportunities for consumers to purchase products through second-hand sellers.

Building on an inductive qualitative study of 59 millennials from three European countries (France, Italy and the UK) and by examining the mediating role of UGC and dissatisfied customers, this paper develops a conceptual framework of three clusters of second-hand luxury fashion goods customers: spiritual consumers, entrepreneurial recoverer consumers and carpe diem consumers.

The proposed SEC framework (spiritual consumers, entrepreneurial recoverer consumers, and carpe diem consumers) illustrates how the emerging themes interconnect with the identified consumers, revealing significant consumer actions and attitudes found in the second-hand luxury goods sector that influence the usage of UGC and its integration into service failure and recovery efforts

This study suggested that the perceptions of consumers seeking second-hand luxury fashion products differ from those who purchase new or never previously owned luxury fashion products. Overall, this research sets the stage for scholars to forge a path forward to enhance the understanding of this phenomenon and its implications for luxury fashion companies.

Drawing on the principal-agent theoretical perspective, we assert that sellers’ opportunism is acknowledged as an essential component that could determine the quality of the relationship between buyers (principals) and sellers (agents). The primary aim of this research is to investigate the influence of seller behavior vs outcome-based reputation and seller’s perceived freedom on opportunistic behavior in the Chinese e-commerce platform context.

The data collected from 436 e-commerce platform sellers were analyzed and interpreted using structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that both behavior-based and outcome-based reputations positively impact sellers’ perceived freedom but negatively impact their opportunism. Additionally, while perceived freedom of objectives reduces opportunism, freedom of action increases it. The study also highlights the significant moderating roles of prevention mechanisms and ethical ideology.

This study extends the principal-agent perspective by integrating the seller’s reputation as a potential source of preventing sellers from behaving opportunistically on e-commerce platforms.

Due to the cross-network effect, two-sided users communicate with each other, producing a coupling network. To study the spread of platform self-operation in two-sided users' marketing and purchasing tactics, this paper considers the differences in reputation acquired by platform-owned and third-party operating channels.

This study proposes a two-layer network with cross-network links: one layer represents the social network of consumers, while the other layer represents the competitive network of buyers. A closed system of differential equations, based on the binary dynamics of the stochastic network, is developed to study the trend and stability points of the platform self-operation dissemination. Then the overall benefits of platform are analyzed to unify the platform diffusion and pricing strategies.

The degree of difference in social influence and cross-network effects affect diffusion synergistically. Cross-network effects hinder diffusion when there is a significant difference of social influence between consumers and sellers but promote diffusion when there is little difference of social influence between consumers and sellers. Additionally, the network weights and reputation gap exhibit a nonlinear correlation with diffusion. For pricing strategy of the platform, it can achieve maximum profit when the pricing of self-operated goods and third-party-operated goods is equal.

This study considers the complex network architecture created by bilateral markets and the dynamic influence of group interactions on product. Additionally, this study takes reputation into account when considering the price and dissemination tactics of various operating channels, offering guidelines for platforms to control merchants and mediate disputes between various operating channels.

Platform certification constitutes an effective mechanism for managing the lemon problem concerning food e-commerce. This work aims to evaluate the market effect of platform certification and analyzes its correction mechanism for lemon problem combined with reputation mechanism.

Utilizing the Gold Seller certification of Taobao.com to serve as an illustration, the authors conducted an empirical study based on the sales data of hairy crabs among 2,239 sample sites over six points in time from October to December 2019, systematically examining the market effect of food e-commerce platform certification along with the interaction between food e-commerce platform certification and reputation mechanisms, followed by a heterogeneity test by product price.

This study finds that sellers with platform certification can significantly increase their sales. The market effect of platform certification is more easily observed in the low-price product market. In addition, platform certification and reputation mechanisms have complementary effects. In a low-price product market, the complementary effect of platform certification and product reputation diminishes, while the complementary effect of platform certification and seller reputation disappears.

This study explores the market effect of food e-commerce platform certification, reveals the market effect of certification mechanism when multiple signaling mechanisms exist simultaneously and conducts an empirical test based on real market data. It provides a better comprehension of how platform certifications work in food e-commerce.

In response to the intense competition in the platform economy, e-commerce platforms are actively introducing value-added services to maintain their competitiveness. However, how effective these value-added services are in fulfilling this purpose remains unclear. This paper explores how value-added services can enhance e-commerce platform competitiveness, measured by both user scale and reputation, considering the effect of network externalities.

A bilateral e-commerce platform with potential high-quality sellers and low-quality sellers on one side and potential buyers on the other side was chosen as research setting. Game theory models are constructed to simultaneously consider the behaviors of all actors (including sellers, buyers and the platform).

On the one hand, to increase the seller scale, basic services play a substituting role in determining the effect of value-added services. On the other hand, to increase the buyer scale and improve platform reputation, basic services play a fundamental role in determining the effect of value-added services. Furthermore, the higher the loss rate of the product value, the bigger the room for providing value-added services. With increasing loss rate of the product value, participating buyers who are attracted by value-added services are the fastest growing indicators; this indicates that the most significant effect of value-added services is its increase in the buyer scale.

Basic services determine the lower limit of platform competitiveness, while value-added services set the upper limit. The results of this paper can instruct different types of platforms to enhance their competitiveness in different ways.

(1) While previous studies on how to enhance platform competitiveness only considered scale or reputation separately, this paper applies a new perspective of platform competitiveness, namely the improvement of both the seller scale/buyer scale and platform reputation. (2) According to the characteristics of bilateral platforms, game theory models are constructed to explore how value-added services can enhance platform competitiveness considering both positive and negative network externalities. (3) The existing literature studies basic services and value-added services in a fragmented state; this paper contributes to research on value-added services by considering the mutual effect between basic and value-added services.

As the operational entity of China Yiwu Commodity Market, Yiwugou is designed to integrate online and offline business to upgrade the physical market by relying on and serving the physical market. It aims to highlight Yiwu Market where every physical shop is related to an online shop, thus protecting honest trade. The strong support from more than 70,000 physical shops owned by Yiwugou ensures the first-hand supply that poses a problem for most e-commerce merchants, and equips Yiwugou with competitive advantage. In terms of marketing, Yiwugou is now aiming at commodity markets across the country through the “Center Plan”, and advertising in public space such as airports. Relying on physical market, Yiwugou Hall distributes commodities with Yiwu's features and superior sources of goods to other places, and connects local market players to Yiwu market, establishing an unobstructed supply channel.