Search results
1 – 10 of 799Nan Chen, Jianfeng Cai, Devika Kannan and Kannan Govindan
The rapid development of the Internet has led to an increasingly significant role for E-commerce business. This study examines how the green supply chain (GSC) operates on the…
Abstract
Purpose
The rapid development of the Internet has led to an increasingly significant role for E-commerce business. This study examines how the green supply chain (GSC) operates on the E-commerce online channel (resell mode and agency mode) and the traditional offline channel with information sharing under demand uncertainty.
Design/methodology/approach
This study builds a multistage game model that considers the manufacturer selling green products through different channels. On the traditional offline channel, the competing retailers decide whether to share demand signals. Regarding the resale mode of E-commerce online channel, just E-tailer 1 determines whether to share information and decides the retail price. In the agency mode, the manufacturer decides the retail price directly, and E-tailer 2 sets the platform rate.
Findings
This study reveals that information accuracy is conducive to information value and profits on both channels. Interestingly, the platform fee rate in agency mode will inhibit the effect of a positive demand signal. Information sharing will cause double marginal effects, and price competition behavior will mitigate such effects. Additionally, when the platform fee rate is low, the manufacturer will select the E-commerce online channel for operation, but the retailers' profit is the highest in the traditional channel.
Originality/value
This research explores the interplay between different channel structures and information sharing in a GSC, considering price competition and demand uncertainty. Besides, we also considered what behaviors and factors will amplify or transfer the effect of double marginalization.
Details
Keywords
Neringa Vilkaite - Vaitone, Sigita Kirse, Karina Adomaviciute - Sakalauske, Vytautas Dikcius and Ignas Zimaitis
This study aims to explore the use of gamification elements by micro and small e-tailers to enhance customer loyalty. Additionally, this research seeks to identify the most…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the use of gamification elements by micro and small e-tailers to enhance customer loyalty. Additionally, this research seeks to identify the most promising gamification elements that can be utilised for this purpose.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopt a qualitative approach to examine the impact of gamification on online customer loyalty to micro and small e-tailers. Data were gathered using a combination of two types of expert interviews. Semi-structured interviews were held with micro and small e-tailers while large e-tailers served as the control group. Structured interviews based on multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) models were conducted to determine the most promising gamification elements.
Findings
The content analysis reveals that gamification has significant potential for fostering customer loyalty and offering various other benefits. However, small e-tailers often refrain from implementing gamification solutions due to the resource requirements in terms of finances, time, information technology and human capital. By assigning weights as an essential step in MCDA models, the authors determined that badges, medals, quests, avatars and competitions are the most promising gamification options for small e-tailers’ efforts to enhance customer loyalty.
Originality/value
The study makes a unique contribution to the understanding of the usefulness of gamification in augmenting customer loyalty and identifying essential gamification elements for micro and small e-tailers.
Details
Keywords
Deepak Halan and Etinder Pal Singh
This study explores coopetition opportunities between e-tailers and brick-and-mortar (BM) retailers and provides a conceptual framework. These opportunities may be triggered by…
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores coopetition opportunities between e-tailers and brick-and-mortar (BM) retailers and provides a conceptual framework. These opportunities may be triggered by events such as social distancing causing crises (SDCC).
Design/methodology/approach
A grounded theory based approach was used wherein 119 news articles and 48 academic papers are the main sources of data to analyse the real-world responses. A typical qualitative methodology, including open and axial coding, was used. To further analyse the insights obtained, six in-depth interviews were conducted.
Findings
Non-customer-interfacing-based coopetition, such as small BM stores serving as e-marketplace sellers and customer-interfacing-based coopetition, such as large BM stores serving as showrooms, are some potential coopetition opportunities.
Research limitations/implications
The majority of the available studies dwell more on offline retailers developing online channels. This study investigates the opposite situation and conceptualises a new understanding of how e-tailers and BM retailers can work together more harmoniously. This study can be used as a springboard by academicians for future research on a larger scale. Five research propositions are offered that can guide hypothesis generation. Development of case studies and consulting services for the industry are the other research opportunities.
Practical implications
Social distancing as a measure may vanish from the world with time; however, social distancing's implications are still pertinent given that new diseases, including new variants of pandemic potential, could continue to emerge. The study puts forward propositions based on theoretical dimensions and second-order themes derived from first-order categories. These propositions are about the drivers of coopetition and the opportunities with both large and small BM stores that e-tailers can leverage during a crisis, given that launching e-tailers' own BM stores demands large investments. This study has social and economic implications too.
Originality/value
This study investigates coopetition, an important trend but lacking adequate research. Whilst only few studies examine coopetition from a crises' perspective, this study investigates develops a new understanding of coopetition opportunities between e-tailers and BM retailers. This study adds to the scarce literature how such opportunities may be triggered by events such as SDCC.
Details
Keywords
Jihyun Lee and Yuri Lee
The purpose of this study was to find different effects of e‐tailer attributes on consumer attitude in fashion product purchase situations according to e‐tailer types.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to find different effects of e‐tailer attributes on consumer attitude in fashion product purchase situations according to e‐tailer types.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative study with a survey method was adopted to test the significance of the paths which construct the structural equation model.
Findings
As a result of the study, e‐tailers were classified into three types: comprehensive mall, fashion specialty mall, and limited brand mall. In addition three attribute dimensions were derived from the statistical analyses: transaction fulfillment, variety, and accessibility. Transaction fulfillment and variety were the critical dimensions for the comprehensive mall and the limited brand mall, whereas variety was the only significant dimension for the fashion specialty mall. According to the multi‐group comparison, it was found that similar strategic implications can be applied to comprehensive and limited brand malls.
Research limitations/implications
The variety dimension be further researched. With variety being equally important for all of the e‐tailer types, specific sub‐dimensions need to be identified.
Originality/value
The paper provides value in classifying the e‐tailer type and investigating the attributes.
Details
Keywords
Nabil Tamimi and Rose Sebastianelli
The purpose of this paper is to report results from an experimental study in which participants rank e-tailer quality on the basis of descriptions involving five attributes…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report results from an experimental study in which participants rank e-tailer quality on the basis of descriptions involving five attributes (reputation of retailer, site usability, security, delivery and customer support). The paper further explores how the relative importance of these attributes to perceived e-tailer quality is impacted by customer demographic and behavioral characteristics (such as gender, age, frequency of online purchasing and use of online reviews).
Design/methodology/approach
Individual-level conjoint models are estimated to determine the relative importance of these five attributes to perceptions of e-tailer quality.
Findings
The relative importance of these five attributes to perceived e-tailer quality are impacted by customer specific characteristics and online behaviors, namely, age, the frequency of prior online purchasing, the frequency of use of online reviews and the importance attached to the availability of a large number of online product reviews.
Research limitations/implications
Managerial implications that help e-tailers develop more effective, targeted strategies for enhancing the quality of their websites and increasing customer loyalty are presented.
Originality/value
The use of conjoint analysis for decomposing overall judgments of e-tailer quality to derive the relative importance of specific e-tailing attributes offers a realistic way to understand how online customers perceive and evaluate e-tailer quality.
Details
Keywords
Jing Yu, Zonghui Song and Chi Zhou
With the vigorous development of the e-commerce delivery service industry, delivery service has become an important factor for e-tailers to obtain the market competitive…
Abstract
Purpose
With the vigorous development of the e-commerce delivery service industry, delivery service has become an important factor for e-tailers to obtain the market competitive advantage. However, how to choose the best delivery service strategy is a difficult problem for e-tailers in practice. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of delivery service on e-tailers and online platforms.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the Stackelberg game, the research study establishes and solves three models, namely dual self-supporting delivery service model, dual third-party delivery service model and differential delivery service model.
Findings
The results show that when the self-supporting and third-party delivery cost coefficients are all small, no matter which delivery service providers the competitor selects, the e-tailer selects delivery with a lower service fee. When the self-supporting and third-party delivery service fee are all low, no matter which delivery service providers the competitor selects, the e-tailer selects delivery with a smaller service cost. Both service fee and service cost determine the choice of e-tailers' delivery strategy. When the commission rate is moderate, both e-tailers are willing to choose the self-supporting delivery strategy, but the platform only prefers to provide self-supporting delivery to them with a lower delivery service sensitivity coefficient.
Originality/value
This paper analyzes the optimal delivery service strategies for e-tailers to compete with competitors, and explores the impacts of parameters for e-tailers and online platforms in their decision-making. The findings provide valuable implications for relevant practices.
Details
Keywords
Pradeep Korgaonkar, Ronnie Silverblatt and Tulay Girard
To investigate if consumer online patronage is influenced by product category and online store type.
Abstract
Purpose
To investigate if consumer online patronage is influenced by product category and online store type.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on the prior work in this area by the authors and other researchers the study collected data in two phases to investigate the study hypotheses.
Findings
The study results suggest that consumers' online patronage is differed based on product type. Interaction effects of the online stores and product type were significant too. Additionally, the rank order of importance of the Internet attribute varied among the three types of online retailers.
Research limitations/implications
The study results should be replicated in other markets. Future studies may also include a variety of different types of online outlets to improve the conclusiveness of the findings reported in this study.
Practical implications
The results should be of interest to the online retailers in choosing the types of merchandise and services to emphasis in the retailers marketing program.
Originality/value
The paper should be of interest to academicians as well as practitioners as it contributes to the small but growing literature in the area of online retailing. It adds to the literature on the product classification paradigm as well as offers practical guidelines for managers.
Details
Keywords
This paper studies the impact of social distancing causing crises (SDCC) such as pandemics in its early stages on e-tailers demand and supply side operations and provides a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper studies the impact of social distancing causing crises (SDCC) such as pandemics in its early stages on e-tailers demand and supply side operations and provides a conceptual framework for adaptation.
Design/methodology/approach
A grounded theory-based approach has been used, wherein journal papers and news articles are the key data sources. Standard qualitative methodology, including open, axial and selective coding has been followed.
Findings
The study provides second order themes derived from first-order categories, the theoretical dimensions and their interrelationships on how e-tailers need to adapt to variations in online buying behaviour, manage manpower shortage and daily necessities inventory shortage, during SDCC. Panic buying emerges as a key disrupting factor as it has multiple repercussions on demand and supply side operations of e-tailers.
Research limitations/implications
Exploratory qualitative research such as this is helpful in early development of a research stream and paves the way for future quantitative studies.
Practical implications
This study makes a valuable contribution on e-tailers adaptation to SDCC with significant managerial implications. There are social, economic and policy implications too. For academicians, this study provides a conceptual framework and serves as a springboard for future research.
Originality/value
The study is unique as perhaps it is one of the first to study e-tailers adaptation to SDCC. It contributes to a body of the literature which is currently scarce but expected to grow exponentially in the coming years.
Details
Keywords
Zhe Qu, Youwei Wang, Shan Wang and Yanhui Zhang
Despite the growing popularity of internet based social media on e-commerce platforms, systematic examination of the emerging phenomenon is scarce. This paper aims to study…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the growing popularity of internet based social media on e-commerce platforms, systematic examination of the emerging phenomenon is scarce. This paper aims to study whether online retailers ' social activity on e-commerce platforms improves their business performance, and if it does, what are the underlying mechanisms.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper proposes a typology of online retailers ' social activities on e-commerce platforms. Then drawing on social capital theory and social network theory, the authors develop hypotheses that relate online retailers ' social activities to their business performance. The hypotheses are tested using a large dataset collected from an e-commerce platform in China.
Findings
The paper shows that: online retailers ' social activities for friend-making improve their business performance, regardless of the directional attribute of the activities; social activities for advice-seeking decrease online retailers ' business performance; and social activities for advice-giving increase online retailers ' business performance.
Research limitations/implications
The data in the empirical study are from an e-commerce platform in China, hence the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed hypotheses further.
Practical implications
The paper includes implications for e-commerce market makers and online retailers operating on e-commerce platforms. The authors show that online retailers ' social activities on e-commerce platforms can be an important source of business value. However certain types of social activities may hurt online retailers ' business performance, implying the necessity of a thoughtful social activity strategy in online marketplaces.
Originality/value
This paper represents an early effort to study whether online retailers ' social activities on e-commerce platforms improve their business performance and the underlying mechanisms of the effect.
Details
Keywords
Pingjun Jiang and James Talaga
Building a customer base as an outcome of customer satisfaction has not been investigated empirically in e‐tailing industry. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature.
Abstract
Purpose
Building a customer base as an outcome of customer satisfaction has not been investigated empirically in e‐tailing industry. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature.
Design/methodology/approach
Explores the relationship between satisfying customers and building a customer base using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Data from the e‐retailing industry related to the input variables (e.g. customers' ratings on a set of e‐store attributes) and output variables (e.g. a proxy measure of “customer base”) are analyzed.
Findings
Performance scores for developing a customer base vary across product categories. Performance score is a good parameter for predicting future change on a unique number of visitors and on the competition pattern for a particular e‐tailer.
Research limitations/implications
Further study can examine other drivers of a developing customer base (e.g. advertising, trust building, and strategic alliance) – thereby producing more robust evidence for customer base development in e‐tailing industry.
Practical implications
Good practices in the generation of customers and page view have been identified. Knowing the efficiency patterns of an e‐tailer makes it possible to guide managerial action by providing a measure of the extent to which different management actions at the e‐tailer can lead to higher future customer growth. Managers should realize that customers match realizations and expectations of product/service performance.
Originality/value
This study has identified satisfaction as the important driver of developing a customer base. It focuses on improving diagnosis of the performance of e‐tailers by assessing reach efficiency and page view efficiency separately.
Details