Technology-Enabled Retail Services and Online Sales Performance

Drawing on the past literature on four retail service areas: content management, customer management, multi-channel management, and visitor traffic management, this research offers an empirical analysis of the relationships between these four service areas and the online sales performance of Web retailers. Using data from an independent source on the profiles as well as operational and sales performances of the top-ranked Web retailers, we map the retailers’ online features into a unified conceptual framework that incorporates the above four broad areas, and empirically study their direct implications on online sales performance. The results show that the retailers’ efforts in content, customer, and multi-channel management features have a significant positive impact on their online sales. However, while retailers expend considerable efforts on attracting visitors to their retail Web sites, our result is inconclusive regarding whether or not the visitor traffic management features have an impact on retailers’ sales performance

The Effects of Social Media & Web Development on Product Promotion & The Effects of Branding on Sales and Building a Startup

The purpose of this study was to identify the key components needed to make a startup. This included created making a landing page and also driving traffic to the page through Facebook. On the landing page section, there was a test to see what would provide the best user experience using Squarespace. This entailed looking into different layouts and using analytics to determine how effective the landing page was in converting customers. In terms of Facebook research, went into looking into creating a method into driving leads into the prospect pipeline. A campaign was run to gather all the data needed and to see how the audience would react to the campaign from beginning to the end of the pipeline. Facebook analytics helped get effective results especially coupled with the analytics found on Squarespace. The results of this study helped create a methodology in which a startup can use Facebook to drive traffic to a landing page. The results showed that when targeting using t-shirts, males ages 35-54 were the most receptive to that type of product. The end result was a 1.8% click-through rate, which was lower than ideal, but could be improved with more testing

Cross-channel retail services as a remedy for retailer switching?: An investigation of retailer switching and potential of cross-channel retail services

This cumulative dissertation consists of four papers that investigate retailer switching and identify potential and threat of cross-channel retail services (CCRS) for retail businesses. The first, conceptual paper compares different theories and models of retail quality. It derives the concept of retailer aspects as a framework to measure retailer quality and further discusses how CCRS can serve as a tool to enhance those retailer aspects. The second paper discusses results from a consumer panel survey and quantifies the influence of satisfaction with retailer aspects on retailer switching during webrooming behavior. The findings of this second paper present the two retailer aspects assurance of delivery and competitive product pricing as key determinants for retailer switching. The third paper defines CCRS and outlines a conceptual classification scheme for CCRS assessments – the CCRS Pentagon. The fourth paper quantifies the impact of CCRS adoption and retailer aspect preferences on CCRS-induced retailer switching based on a second consumer panel survey. Results from this second study affirm the existence of CCRS-induced retailer switching. The paper concludes that CCRS can serve as a retailer’s lock-in mechanism, but that the availability of CCRS in retail environments also threatens retail businesses. In sum, the dissertation provides academic contributions and suggestions for further academic research as well as practical implications and management tools for application in retail businesses.:I. Introduction II. Enhancing Multi-Channel Retail Quality through Cross-Channel Services III. What Drives Competitive Webrooming? The Roles of Channel and Retailer Aspects IV. Cross-Channel Retail Services: A Service Classification Along The Retail Function V. Service-induced Retailer Switching – Power of Cross-Channel Retail Services VI. Conclusion Appendix A: Estimated parameters in baseline-category logit model Appendix B: Conditional marginal effects and conditional probability Appendix C: T-Tests for retailer aspects per service exampl

Democratizing Business Software: Small Business Ecosystems for Open Source Applications

Open source has democratized software innovation to an unprecedented degree, but doubts persist as to whether democratized innovation can extend to business applications, where individual developers are not the end users. We report on a new kind of ecosystem around extensions to open source business applications, and examine the types of contributors and contributions relative to previous open source research. Our results show a surprising presence of small businesses, particularly consultants and freelance developers. These smaller firms bridge an important gap between lead users and producers, contributing disproportionately to new back-end and integration features. This study shows how new networks of commercial and semi-commercial players, particularly small businesses, are combining their efforts to create viable business ecosystems around successful open source business applications

Keyword Competition and Determinants of Ad Position in Sponsored Search Advertising

Given the significant growth of the Internet in recent years, marketers have been striving for new techniques and strategies to prosper in the online world. Statistically, search engines have been the most dominant channels of Internet marketing in recent years. However, the mechanics of advertising in such a market place has created a challenging environment for marketers to position their ads among their competitors. This study uses a unique cross-sectional dataset of the top 500 Internet retailers in North America and hierarchical multiple regression analysis to empirically investigate the effect of keyword competition on the relationship between ad position and its determinants in the sponsored search market. To this end, the study utilizes the literature in consumer search behavior, keyword auction mechanism design, and search advertising performance as the theoretical foundation. This study is the first of its kind to examine the sponsored search market characteristics in a cross-sectional setting where the level of keyword competition is explicitly captured in terms of the number of Internet retailers competing for similar keywords. Internet retailing provides an appropriate setting for this study given the high-stake battle for market share and intense competition for keywords in the sponsored search market place. The findings of this study indicate that bid values and ad relevancy metrics as well as their interaction affect the position of ads on the search engine result pages (SERPs). These results confirm some of the findings from previous studies that examined sponsored search advertising performance at a keyword level. Furthermore, the study finds that the position of ads for web-only retailers is dependent on bid values and ad relevancy metrics, whereas, multi-channel retailers are more reliant on their bid values. This difference between web-only and multi-channel retailers is also observed in the moderating effect of keyword competition on the relationships between ad position and its key determinants. Specifically, this study finds that keyword competition has significant moderating effects only for multi-channel retailers

Is more information always good? : investigating the impact of website interface features on e-retailer's sales performance

A number of frameworks have been suggested for online retailing, but still there exists little consensus among researchers and practitioners regarding the appropriate amount of information critical and essential to the improvement of customers' satisfaction and their purchase intention. Against this backdrop, this study contributes to the current practical and theoretical discussions and conversations about how information search and perceived risk theories can be applied to the management of online retailer website features. This paper examines the moderating role of website personalization in studying the relationship between information content provided on the top US retailers' websites, and customer satisfaction and purchase intention. The study also explores the role played by customer satisfaction and purchase intention in studying the relationship between information that is personalized to the needs of individual customers and online retailers' sales performance. Results indicate that the extent of information content features presented to online customers alone is not enough for companies looking to satisfy and motivate customers to purchase. However, information that is targeted to an individual customer influences customer satisfaction and purchase intention, and customer satisfaction in tum serves as a driver to the retailer's online sales performance

Experiential marketing: bridging the gap between value creation to customers and value capture by firms

An already voluminous literature addressing the value of marketing to the firm has, until now, fallen short of expectations. In a context in which marketers have increasingly been challenged to prove their worth, the scholarly attempts to demonstrate the value of marketing to the firm have stumbled to reach unquestionable results. Part of the problem may lie in the lengthy and twisted chain of effects from marketing actions to marketing performance outcomes. Between inputs and outputs lie numerous uncontrollable and often confounding external factors, such as the actions of customers, competitors, and other market agents. The problematic operationalization of such complex market structures impelled researchers to analyze fractions of this web of effects rather than attempting to study overarching conceptual models in full. Prior empirical research has typically considered either the impact of marketing actions in the marketplace or the consequences to the firm of the behaviors of customers and rivals. There is still a gap in the literature of an all-encompassing end-to-end demonstration of how specific marketing inputs can drive specific marketing outputs unequivocally contributing to organizational performance. This thesis addresses the issue of marketing as a value-capturing corporate function through its determinant role in managing value-creating exchanges with customers in the marketplace while hindering competitors from appropriating it. Our research suggests that experiential marketing may bridge the gap between value creation to the customer and value capture by the firm. In particular, our findings show that marketing-crafted valuecreating online shopping experiences may predict value-capturing marketing performance outcomes with the mediation of superior customer-level marketing performance. Thus, our results suggest that experiential marketing may offer an opportunity to bridge the gap between "give and take," value creation and value capture, and demonstrate how relevant the contribution of marketing to the firm's value rising can be.Uma já volumosa literatura abordando o valor do marketing para a empresa tem até agora ficado aquém das expectativas. As tentativas para demonstrar a valia do marketing para a empresa não têm conseguido alcançar inequívocas demonstrações de como o marketing pode ter uma contribuição relevante para a apropriação de valor pela empresa. Parte do problema reside na longa e sinuosa cadeia de efeitos ligando os estímulos de marketing aos resultados do desempenho. Entre uns e outros existem inúmeros fatores externos, incontroláveis e perturbadores, tais como as ações de outros participantes no mercado. A investigação empírica anterior tem tipicamente estudado ou os efeitos the ações de marketing no mercado, sobretudo nos clientes, mas também nos concorrentes, ou então as consequências para a empresa dos comportamentos dos clientes e rivais. Consequentemente, há uma lacuna na literatura de uma demonstração abrangente de como determinados estímulos de marketing podem conduzir a efeitos específicos precursores do desempenho da organização. Esta tese equaciona o marketing como função de captura de valor para a empresa através do seu papel determinante na gestão de trocas de valor com clientes, em paralelo com o impedimento aos concorrentes de se apropriarem do valor criado. A nossa investigação sugere que o marketing experiencial pode estabelecer a ligação entre criação de valor para o cliente e captura de valor para a empresa. Em particular, os nossos resultados mostram que experiências de compra criadoras de valor para os clientes em ambientes digitais podem conduzir à captura de valor para a empresa através da mediação de desempenho de marketing a nível de cliente. Portanto, os nossos resultados sugerem que o marketing experiencial pode ser uma grande oportunidade para preencher a lacuna entre “dar e receber”, criação e captura de valor, e mostram quão relevante pode ser a contribuição do marketing para o valor da empresa