Consumer adoption of group-buying auctions: an experimental study

Internet-based group-buying auctions enable consumers to obtain volume discounts, but they face risk and trust issues that are not present in other e-retailing formats, which affects their adoption by consumers. Bidders experience uncertainty about the final auction price, and the risk of whether the auction will be completed. We evaluate textual comments and the number of bids made in an auction as drivers of a consumer’s perceived financial and psychological risks toward the group-buying auction mechanism and trust in the auction initiator. We use an Internet-based experimental test bed for online group-buying auctions and will report on one experiment that we conducted. Our results indicate that textual comments made by the participants about sellers in past auctions and existing bids affected a consumer’s perceived trust in the auction initiator and the financial risk of the mechanism. Positive textual comments and more bids appear to enhance perceived trust in the auction initiator and reduce financial risk, and other consumers are more willing to make bids as a result. Consumers continued to express concerns about the uncertainty of the final group-buying auction price though.     

Comparison of product bundling strategies on different online shopping behaviors

Bundling is a very popular sales-promotion tool, in which a critical issue is to decide what products should be sold together in order to improve sales. Traditionally, this decision is based on the order data collected from the points of sale. However, Internet marketing now allows marketers to efficiently collect not only order data but also browsing and shopping-cart data, which provide marketers with information on the consumers’ decision-making processes, rather than only the final shopping decisions. The present study aimed to determine the value of this newly available information by comparing the performance of decision-making on product bundling based on three types of data on online shopping behaviors. The results from a field experiment reveal that significantly better decisions are made on the bundling of products when browsing and shopping-cart data are integrated than when only order data or browsing data are used.     

When client/server isn't enough: coordinating multiple distributedtasks

Computing in a distributed environment for multitasked cooperative work is a promising area that presents many coordination issues. Our prototype system implements a three-layer architecture to provide greater control and flexibility in the distributed multitasking environment. The architecture includes a groupware server, application servers, and clients. The architecture can be further refined to provide more flexible control of activities. More applications, such as group calendaring and participative design can also be studied to find their idiosyncratic coordination needs and to elaborate the division of labor among different servers and clients     

The importance of language familiarity in global business e-negotiation

This study explores the influence of language familiarity on online persuasion behavior based on subjective measurements and objective actual negotiation behavior. It was designed to test whether negotiating in a non-native language decreases the negotiation self-efficacy, given that the increasing use of global e-marketplaces and popularity of international business trades make negotiation in a non-native language inevitable. An online experiment was conducted using a text-based asynchronous e-negotiation system, with two groups of subjects negotiating in native and non-native languages separately in purchasing negotiations. The analysis results show that language familiarity plays a critical role in inducing persuasion behavior in e-negotiations, with a higher language familiarity leading to higher language self-efficacy and negotiation self-efficacy. However, only negotiation self-efficacy affects e-negotiation communication efficiency and effectiveness, both of which increase online persuasion behavior. Based on actual negotiation behavior, the results show that non-native language negotiators are less active than native language negotiators in negotiations. However, the negotiation outcome did not differ significantly between the two groups, suggesting that the final outcome is also influenced by other factors. The results also showed that language familiarity has a greater effect on the buyer than on the seller.     

Re-examining the influence of trust on online repeat purchase intention: The moderating role of habit and its antecedents

Customer loyalty or repeat purchasing is critical for the survival and success of any store. By focusing on online stores, this study investigates the moderating role of habit on the relationship between trust and repeat purchase intention. Prior research on online behavior continuance models perceives usefulness, trust, satisfaction, and perceived value as the major determinants of continued usage or loyalty, overlooking the important role of habit. We define habit in the context of online shopping as the extent to which buyers tend to shop online automatically without thinking. Building on recent research on the continued usage of IS and repeat purchasing, we develop a model suggesting that habit acts as a moderator between trust and repeat purchase intention, while familiarity, value and satisfaction are the three antecedents of habit. Data collected from 454 customers of the Yahoo!Kimo shopping mall provide strong support for the research model. The results indicate that a higher level of habit reduces the effect of trust on repeat purchase intention. The data also show that value, satisfaction, and familiarity are important to habit formation and thus relevant within the context of online repeat purchasing. The implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research are also discussed.