Different Prices for Identical Products? Market Efficiency and the Virtual Location in B2C E-Commerce

This paper analyses market efficiency and the role of the virtual location in digital markets using a data set containing more than 23,000 price observations from the online market for contact lenses as well as detailed information about online retailer and product characteristics. The data allow to implement and test the concept of virtual location. The empirical results reveal evidence for lower prices and less price dispersion among e-retailers in comparison to hybrid retailers, which supports the hypothesis of enhanced market efficiency in electronic markets. Furthermore, the results show that an online shop?s virtual location influences its prices and that differences in prices are partially driven by differentiation in retailer service. A decomposition of the price differential reveals that there may indeed be a competition effect. --electronic markets,efficiency,virtual location,pricing

Internet auctions in marketing: The consumer perspective

Internet auctions for consumer are among the most popular and most successful business models in electronic commerce. Research so far, however, has focused on prerequisites and consequences of auctions as a marketing intstrument of suppliers. Even though it is a key success factor from a marketing perspective, the demand side has not inspired similar attention. This paper focuses on the attitudes, motives, and behavior of auction customers. It shows why ccurrent beliefs about bidder characteristics are myths. Taking these misconceptions as a starting point, the existence of an experiential and a pragmatic type of auction customer is proposed. An explorative empirical study looking for the characteristics of both types of auction customers is described. Results indicate that less than half of auction shoppers in the sudy are experiential oriented. Except substantial additional demand concerning technological and emotional qualities of auctions these shoppers do not differ dramatically from pragmatic oriented shoppers. Both types are open-minded towards further development of consumer auctions to commercial marketplaces. Business models of auctioneers and suppliers should concentrate on the basic utility of the auction algorithm by facilitating individual matchmaking instead of pursuing costly additional utility by promoting the entertainment value of auctions. --

Different Prices for Identical Products, Market Efficiency and the Virtual Location in B2C E-Commerce

This paper analyses market efficiency and the role of the virtual location in digital markets using a data set containing more than 23,000 price observations from the online market for contact lenses as well as detailed information about online retailer and product characteristics. The data allow to implement and test the concept of virtual location. The empirical results reveal evidence for lower prices and less price dispersion among e-retailers in comparison to hybrid retailers, which supports the hypothesis of enhanced market efficiency in electronic markets. Furthermore, the results show that an online shops virtual location influences its prices and that differences in prices are partially driven by differentiation in retailer service. A decomposition of the price differential reveals that there may indeed be a competition effect

The Geography of Internet Adoption by Retailers

Up till now, the literature on Internet adoption by retailers paid little attention to spatial variables. Using data on 27,000 retail outlets in the Netherlands, we investigate the geographical diffusion of Internet adoption by Dutch retailers. More precise, we examine to what extent retail Internet adoption differs between shopping centers, cities, and regions, while controlling for product and organizational variables. Results of the linear and multinomial logistic regressions suggest that shops at city centers are more likely to adopt the Internet than shops located at shopping centers at the bottom of the retail hierarchy. Furthermore, shops in large cities have a higher probability to adopt the Internet than shops in small cities. On the regional level, the likelihood of Internet adoption is higher for shops in core regions than for retail outlets in the periphery. In conclusion, geography seems to matter for retail Internet adoption.evolutionary economics, internet adoption, retailing

Rethinking the strategy of Amazon.com

The strategic challenge facing Amazon.com is that it is not able to convincethe investment community that it is able to generate profits in the long run. The doubtof investors is well grounded. This paper argues that Amazon should make a strategicshift to operate as a provider of technical services and business consulting in the areaof business-to-consumer e-commerce. At the same time it should reduce the range ofthe items sold on-line to, say, books and CDs, and treat this part of its business as akind of research and development activity. Its avant garde status as e-commerceinnovator and its track record in customer satisfaction have tremendous market valueand can serve as an 'open sesame' to enter the huge market of e-commerce consulting.Its continuing survival and (hopefully) future profitability hold deeper implications forother dot.com companies and B2C e-commerce

B2B or B2C, this is the question: A case study over implementation of B2B and B2C models in the same sector and a cross-company e-business model evaluation

E-commerce as an interdisciplinary field was interpreted in literature in two major aspects: technological and managerial. In this paper we are going to closely investigate and analyse both of the mentioned aspects of e-commerce business models. There is no plausible conclusion among scholars toward proclaiming one of the models better than the other, since it depends on many other business environment factors and business functions. In our case study, we face two major players in the industry of fixing solutions and technologies. Based on swot analysis we explain different aspects of the B2B model implemented from the company Fischer Group, on one side, and the B2C model implemented from the Hilti group on the other side. The conclusion of this paper, will show that there is no clear division between the two models, resulting in the birth of new more complicated e-commerce models like B2B2C. Even Though B2B2C models are known in the literature, a closer look inside the actual technical implementation, and management of such kind of e-commerce models is missing or very rare in the scholar databases. With this case study, we tend to provide to this community, and the scholars in the field of e-commerce in general, a deeper insight into B2B2C implementations and a modest contribution to cross model evaluation and analysis methods

Quality Issues in E-Commerce Distribution Chains

This paper examines current trends and selected quality aspects of business to consumer (B2C) E-commerce. As Web sales increase, E-merchants collect more and more data about customer profiles and product preferences that they sell to third parties. We examine how the customers feel about the loss of privacy. In order to succeed on the Internet a company must identify and meet customer preferences better than its competitors. We examine the expectations and the frustrations of customers doing business on-line. Finally, we use several real world situations to discuss risks of alienating the traditional distribution channels by selling directly to the customer on the Internet

What Customer Want From Online Bookstore?

Nowadays, retail must run multichannel store to increase its revenue and satisfy the customer. Besides the physical store, they also need an online store to accommodate the customer who chooses Internet as their way to shop. X Store, as the biggest bookstore in Indonesia, realized about this trend and since 2002 they built their online shop, it is named X Online. This research has an objection to give suggestions for factors that influence the customer buying interest, based on a statistical test series. It will help the X Online to do some effective ways and win the competition. We did the descriptive analysis to check the respondent demography and customer score for each variable, for satisfaction and importance factors with Likert scale from 1 to 5. To see the relationship between customer demography and the variables, we used the Crosstab analysis. Followed by Manova test to see the difference between satisfaction and importance level, then the last was Quadrant analysis, to find which factors are weak, so X Online must focus on it. The result showed that the customer felt satisfied for on time delivery. Crosstab analysis showed there was a relationship between X Store customer and X Online customer. They who have ever shopped at X Store with the minimum frequency once a month, also shopped at X Online. From Quadrant analysis, we knew that the strengths of X Online were collected, wide range delivery, guarantee, on time delivery, book condition, and data security. The weaknesses were product availability, price and discount, simplicity and order procedure