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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) involved in the production of natural essential oils can reduce market accessibility challenges by trading through electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces). However, trust is a barrier that SMEs should overcome in order to successfully trade in e-marketplaces. The agricultural sector presents a unique challenge to the subject of trust and e-marketplaces. It is difficult for SMEs in the agricultural sector to provide the level of assurance of product quality that their buyers expect. Trust between buyers and sellers during the earliest stages of e-marketplace interaction can pave the way for future trust in a seller on an e-marketplace. Thus, this study uses the uncertainty reduction theory (URT) to investigate factors that could influence the initial trust and pave the way for future trust in a seller on e-marketplaces. This study assumes a qualitative research methodology in which a multiple-case study approach is adopted. The study focuses on SMEs that produce natural essential oils in South Africa. Open-ended interviews were conducted with companies involved in buying or selling natural essential oils in South Africa to determine the factors that influence their decision to buy or sell in an e-marketplace. Findings from data were used to inform the development of a model of trust in sellers of natural essential oils in e-marketplaces. The proposed model recommends trust factors that should be considered during the entry, personal, and exit phases of the URT. The model identifies common and unique trust factors that relate specifically to businesses trading natural essential oils on e-marketplaces. The study found that some SMEs face challenges in coming up with an effective model for selling agricultural produce on e-marketplaces. Hence, they often resort to face-to-face interaction when it comes to product inspection, especially when dealing with first-time buyers. However, this study presented measures put in place by other SMEs suggesting how such challenges could be addressed. Nevertheless, a lack of trust in technology remains a cause for concern to some SMEs selling natural essential oils.

The research aims to qualitatively explore e-marketplace service quality (EMSQ) from the perspective of an industrial buyer as a sole decision-maker. It further intends to quantitatively examine its impact on the industrial buyer's perceived value (PV), overall satisfaction (SAT), and e-loyalty (ELOY) in the context of business-to-government (B2G) e-commerce.

The research used an exploratory sequential mixed-method design. A qualitative exploratory study of EMSQ was conducted using a Straussian grounded theory (GT) technique, followed by an explanatory quantitative study using PLS-SEM to evaluate causal links between various research variables.

In the area of e-services, the investigation found that the hierarchical structure of EMSQ encompasses six broadly applicable dimensions and one B2G context-specific dimension of the e-governance process quality. The study also reinforced previous research findings in the B2C and B2B e-commerce domains, highlighting that e-service quality positively impacts online buyer's PV, SAT and ELOY.

This research contributed to the area of e-service operations by developing and validating the EMSQ model in the B2G e-commerce settings. Further, it has opened up new research avenues in B2G e-commerce.

The findings from this research highlighted that e-service operations managers should focus on usability, technological concerns, product/vendor quality concerns, customer support reliability, along with effective e-governance, ordering and logistics processes for e-business success. It also provides policymakers with guidelines for making B2G e-marketplaces sustainable.

To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study employing the GT and PLS-SEM techniques to explore EMSQ from the viewpoint of industrial buyers in B2G e-commerce. The study contributed to prior literature by proposing and validating the hierarchical EMSQ model.

The purpose of this article is to develop a typology of e‐marketplace functionality and then link the typology to the associated value creation potential of differing types of e‐marketplaces.

In‐depth interviews with the executives of 50 e‐marketplaces, a web/mail‐based survey of another 350 e‐marketplaces and interviews with several e‐marketplace customers were conducted.

B2B e‐marketplaces offer a variety of different value propositions. Leading e‐marketplaces have a well‐developed strategy for reaching a particular segment of the buying community, based on service needs. Developing e‐marketplaces do not demonstrate the same focus. On one hand, only a few e‐marketplaces had developed the same winning constellations of services, while on the other hand, most were planning a roll‐out of a wide variety of services that would carry them far beyond a focused strategy. The success of this approach seems problematic.

The prudent customer of an e‐marketplace should weigh their requirements against the functionality found across the broad set of e‐marketplaces as well as against the constellations of functionality (and value creation potential) developed in this research. Only after a careful assessment of needs, can companies make rational decisions about how to effectively use e‐marketplaces.

This research employs a strong research method to create a unique typology of e‐marketplace functionality. This research also links the typology of e‐marketplace functionality to its value creating potential.

This paper aims to study a dominant e-retailer operating its own e-marketplace (B2C) to host peer competitor as well as acting as a traditional retailer (“dual-format” retailing as in Mantin and Krishnan 2014). The dominant retailer offers a two-part tariff charging scheme to a third-party seller. The seller decides whether to join the e-marketplace. The present paper is interested in addressing the following questions: What is the pricing equilibrium before/after the formation of the e-marketplace? What will be the “optimal” charging scheme? What is the impact on the e-marketplace operator if the third-party seller has the option to become “featured”.

This paper adopts a stylized model to capture the competition between the two retailers and applies game theory to solve the pricing equilibrium. The authors model the dual-format retailing in a two-stage decision: Stage 1, the e-marketplace operator offers a two-part tariff; Stage 2, if the other retailer is participating, they engage in a pricing competition. They assume that the e-marketplace operator is a profit maximizer by choosing its charging scheme subject to the condition that the participating retailer is no worse off.

The authors find that the e-retailer and the third-party seller in the e-marketplace are not always hurt by intensified price competition. They identify conditions under which higher expected prices are charged as a result of agglomeration effect. The authors’ model also provides theoretical evidence on this popular charging scheme, and shows the feasible region in which the e-marketplace operator could allocate the surplus resulted from the formation of the e-marketplace between itself and the participating retailer. Finally, the authors demonstrate that if the third-party seller has the option to become a “featured” retailer (He and Chen, 2006), it can be detrimental to the e-marketplace operator.

This work is different in three ways: First, the authors model an e-marketplace adopting a “dual-format” retailing, facing the trade-off between its direct retailing revenue and the rents collected from the member store, while the literature mainly focuses on e-marketplaces playing the intermediary role. Second, they explicitly model the “market expansion effect” caused by the agglomeration after the formation of the e-marketplace. The present study complements this stream of research by investigating and providing theoretical evidence on the charging scheme popularly adopted by the e-marketplaces and proposes ways to share the surplus to the participating store.

Considering the growing momentum of online marketplaces worldwide, the purpose of this paper is to develop a model to identify the main activities impacted by the implementation of an e-marketplace in the business-to-business relationship and assess the savings on costs for the main actors involved (i.e. manufacturer, distributor and retailer).

The methodology used in the study is a quantitative one. The analytical model used to evaluate B2b e-marketplace's impacts followed three main steps: (1) model settings and general assumptions, (2) cost structure and (3) model simulation.

The findings reveal that beyond stock-out costs and inventory levels also other operating costs (i.e. transportation, penalty and administrative costs) play a significant role in determining overall impacts of B2b e-marketplace, and as such should be considered by managers in their process of e-marketplace evaluation, selection and performance optimisation. The model shows that compared with the offline scenario the B2b e-marketplace is expected to bring value to the overall supply chain, which tends to increase as the share of e-sales penetration is increased, ranging from a cost reduction of 0.1% (€ 229.2k) in the base-case of 10% e-sales adoption, up to 0.9% (€ −2.2 M) in case of full e-marketplace adoption.

This study aims to shed light and foster the adoption of B2b e-marketplace by providing some practical tools to support (1) research in future studies, filling the existing gaps on the topic, and (2) managers in the process of adoption and execution of e-sales through online marketplaces.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the current literature on trust-building mechanisms in e-commerce and provide a comprehensive view of how the perceived usefulness of three types of online trust-building mechanisms affects trust in the e-seller and trust in the e-marketplace, which, in turn, shape the customer repurchase intentions.

Survey data were collected from 193 eBay customers to test the proposed research model.

The study found that the perceived usefulness of seller-based mechanism affects both trust in the e-marketplace and trust in the e-seller. Meanwhile, the perceived usefulness of experience-based mechanism only influences trust in the e-seller and the perceived usefulness of institution-based mechanism (IBM) only affects trust in the e-marketplace. Furthermore, this study found that trust in the e-marketplace can substitute for the effect of trust in the e-seller on customer repurchase intentions.

In an e-marketplace like eBay that does not involve much in the transaction process, e-sellers should invest more resources in building attractive and informative websites about their products and organizations. Moreover, e-marketplace owners should provide guidelines and enforce policies to improve the perceived usefulness of an IBM to increase an e-marketplace’s credibility. While such e-marketplace credibility does not affect customer repurchase intentions directly, it reduces customer concerns about individual e-sellers, which makes it easier for e-sellers to retain customers.

This study delineates how the perceived usefulness of three types of online trust-building mechanisms imposes different effects on trust in the e-marketplace and trust in the e-seller. Moreover, this study reveals the intertwined relationship between trust in the e-marketplace and trust in the e-seller that is different from extant studies conducted in marketplaces like Amazon.

To provide a contingent framework for the classification and selection of e‐marketplaces has been developed.

The framework is developed from a review of relevant literature and examined through conducting case studies, two of which are reported in the paper.

A number of e‐business classification models are proposed. The key model dimensions considered are the nature of the products/services to be traded, the ownership/formation of the marketplace and the level of functionality/relationships exhibited by the trading exchange. The strategic role of an e‐marketplace is also identified as being dynamic in nature over the product/market lifecycle and the ongoing development of information systems and technologies.

The paper considers the power, relationship and behavioural aspects associated with the formation of e‐marketplaces but this is not the specific focus of the work undertaken.

The cases demonstrated that supporting future products customisation strategies using e‐marketplaces appeared to be only possible if sufficient confidence and expertise is developed within the companies and their supply chain, and also the fear of disruption and disintegration of the chain is overcome.

The paper combines a strategically important concept with empirical and practical considerations.

In the competitive e-marketplace today, sellers are using an increasing number of signals to entice customers to make online purchases. However, how differential these signals are in terms of their capacity to improve sales performance has not yet been investigated. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Drawing on signaling theory and grounded in the context of China’s largest e-marketplace, Taobao, this study investigated the different effects of five commonly used signals on the sales performance of e-marketplace sellers.

The authors find that warranty has the highest effect on sales performance, followed by overall rating, mean detailed seller rating, percent of positives, and web site quality.

First, this study builds on signaling theory and contributes to the e-marketplace literature by providing new insights into how specific signals differentially affect sales performance in the e-marketplace (with evidence from a large-scale empirical analysis). Second, the study extends the applicability of signaling theory to the e-marketplace domain by incorporating distinctive features of the e-marketplace into the original signaling theory. Finally, the findings lend practical support to e-marketplace sellers’ investment decisions on signals and provide guidelines for deployment of such signals.

The Internet offers companies many opportunities to implement new business models, called e(electronic)‐business in short, and to reinforce their competitiveness in the market. It is currently suggested that business‐to‐business commerce, which is one of the dominant segments in e‐business, is going to develop around e‐marketplaces. However, the new millennium has witnessed the rise and fall of many “dot.com” firms and now both the companies and the investors are extremely cautious about the performance and effectiveness of the e‐marketplaces. To get more benefit from this digital marketplace, suggests the use of fuzzy logic based on multi‐criteria evaluation as a superior means of improving the efficiency of the decision making for the e‐marketplace selection under uncertain conditions. This evaluation approach, in which both fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy Delphi methodologies are employed, enables one to deal with the uncertainty and vagueness from subjective perception and the experiences of humans in a group decision process and ensures a more convincing and effective decision making. Also shows the application of the approach on a real life case.

E‐marketplaces are one of the relatively new trends that are affecting buyer‐supplier relationships. Although there have been several failures in the e‐business arena, whether it is business‐to‐business (B2B) or business‐to‐consumer (B2C) e‐commerce, there is no doubt that the Internet has changed the way that business is done in several ways. It has been shown that electronic commerce can fundamentally change the inter‐organizational processes involving buyer‐supplier relationships. It reshapes these buyer‐supplier relationships, improves a business's core processes, and helps reach new markets or segments through the electronic medium. This paper discusses the opportunities and challenges facing e‐marketplaces today, and also the concerns facing potential participants in these e‐marketplaces who are trying to weigh the risks presented by such participation and the possible benefits that can be reaped by streamlining supply chain processes. Some of the major concerns facing existing and potential buyers and suppliers that are discussed in this paper include integration issues, security issues and antitrust issues.