Economic Effects of Electronic Markets

transport industry;electronic markets;flower industry

How Will Online Affiliate Marketing Networks Impact Search Engine Rankings?

In online affiliate marketing networks advertising web sites offer their affiliates revenues based on provided web site traffic and associated leads and sales. Advertising web sites can have a network of thousands of affiliates providing them with web site traffic through hyperlinks on their web sites. Search engines such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo, consider hyperlinks as a proof of quality and/or reliability of the linked web sites, and therefore use them to determine the relevance of web sites with regard to search queries. In this research we investigate the potential impact of online affiliate marketing networks on the ranking of advertisers’ web sites in search results. This article empirically explores how seven different affiliate marketing networks affect the rankings of the advertising web sites within web search engines. The field study followed intensively seven online affiliate marketing networks for twelve weeks after their launch. The results indicate that newly started affiliate networks effectively improve the rankings of advertising web sites in search engine results. Also, it was found that the effects of affiliate marketing networks on search engine rankings were smaller for advertising web sites operating in highly competitive markets. Another finding was that a growth in visitors coming from search engines was present as a result of the improvement of search engine rankings. Finally, the results indicate that cost-benefit metrics associated with affiliate marketing programs, such as the average marketing cost will decrease when the positive effects of affiliate marketing on search engine rankings are taken into account.Advertising;Hyperlinks;Online Affiliate Marketing Networks;Search Engine Rankings

Braiding of non-Abelian anyons using pairwise interactions

The common approach to topological quantum computation is to implement quantum gates by adiabatically moving non-Abelian anyons around each other. Here we present an alternative perspective based on the possibility of realizing the exchange (braiding) operators of anyons by adiabatically varying pairwise interactions between them rather than their positions. We analyze a system composed by four anyons whose couplings define a T-junction and we show that the braiding operator of two of them can be obtained through a particular adiabatic cycle in the space of the coupling parameters. We also discuss how to couple this scheme with anyonic chains in order to recover the topological protection.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. Errors corrected, clarifications and comments adde

An intuitive handheld acoustic noise source finder

ABSTRACT - An apparatus has been developed to find acoustic sound sources in the near field of a radiating object operating in a noisy environment. It is based on two orthogonally placed particle velocity probes (two Microflowns[1], [2]). The complete signal processing is done in real time with battery powered analogue circuitry, resulting in a very small and handheld measurement device. One Microflown is used to display the sound level and to listen to the source whilst rejecting the background noise and another Microflown is used to create a stereo\ud indication in which direction the device must be moved to pinpoint the noise source

Single fermion manipulation via superconducting phase differences in multiterminal Josephson junctions

We show how the superconducting phase difference in a Josephson junction may be used to split the Kramers degeneracy of its energy levels and to remove all the properties associated with time reversal symmetry. The superconducting phase difference is known to be ineffective in two-terminal short Josephson junctions, where irrespective of the junction structure the induced Kramers degeneracy splitting is suppressed and the ground state fermion parity must stay even, so that a protected zero-energy Andreev level crossing may never appear. Our main result is that these limitations can be completely avoided by using multi-terminal Josephson junctions. There the Kramers degeneracy breaking becomes comparable to the superconducting gap, and applying phase differences may cause the change of the ground state fermion parity from even to odd. We prove that the necessary condition for the appearance of a fermion parity switch is the presence of a "discrete vortex" in the junction: the situation when the phases of the superconducting leads wind by $2\pi$. Our approach offers new strategies for creation of Majorana bound states as well as spin manipulation. Our proposal can be implemented using any low density, high spin-orbit material such as InAs quantum wells, and can be detected using standard tools.Comment: Source code available as ancillary files. 10 pages, 7 figures. v2: minor changes, published versio

Leveraging Offshore IT Outsourcing by SMEs through Online Marketplaces

Following their larger counterparts, an increasing number of small firms outsource their IT tasks to lower cost offshore destinations. For small firms, however, offshore outsourcing is a difficult undertaking as it involves high transaction costs. Online marketplaces for IT services, which have recently become available to small firms, make offshore IT outsourcing more accessible and manageable, although differences in the marketplace design result in varying outcomes across the marketplaces. This has consequences for SME’s decision as to which online marketplace to use, because different markets may have different types of benefits and costs. This paper sets to analyze some of the similarities and differences between online marketplaces for IT services and their effects for small firms. First, we analyze if and how online marketplaces reduce small firms’ transaction costs in offshore IT outsourcing. Second, we examine the effects of market entry barriers on outcomes of online marketplaces and their implications for small firms. The results indicate that online marketplaces for IT services do reduce transaction costs for small firms in offshore outsourcing across ten specific market processes. More surprising, however, is the finding that the lower market entry barriers for suppliers result in lower prices for buyers without compromising other aspects of market performance.Offshore IT Outsourcing;Online Market;Process-Stakeholder Analysis;Reverse Auction

Buyer Commitment and Opportunism in the Online Market for IT Services

Companies increasingly outsource IT-related tasks using reverse auction mechanisms embedded into online marketplaces. However, a considerable proportion of auctions at these marketplaces do not result in a contract between buyer and supplier. Extant literature mostly refers to costly bidding and bid evaluation to explain this phenomenon. Another possible explanation is that because of the low entry barriers, buyers with a low commitment to exchange can use the marketplace solely for information gath-ering purposes such as price benchmarking and obtaining free consultations, having little or no intention to contract a supplier. We test this explanation by looking at how different types of costs incurred by the buyer during the sourcing process, are related to the outcome of reverse auctions in terms of contract award. We argue that higher levels of search, preparation and negotiation costs are associated with higher commitment to exchange and find that opportunistic behaviour does indeed play a part in the non-contracted projects, while committed buyers are more likely to enter into a contract with a supplier. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 2,574 reverse auctions at a leading online marketplace for IT services and further verified across projects of different value and different levels of buyer experience. On the practical side, we recommend setting up entry barriers for buyers with a low level of commitment.IT Outsourcing;Online Markets;Opportunism;Reverse Auctions;Transaction Costs