J. Theor. Appl. Electron. Commer. Res., Volume 16, Issue 2 (May 2021) – 13 articles

Online furniture rental platforms are expanding choice and convenience, allowing customers to rent from a wide array of providers with the click of a button or tap of a finger. The business of online furniture rental is undergoing rapid change as new online platforms race to capture markets and customers across most of the metropolitan cities in India. The paper aims to investigate attributes for online furniture rental platforms by proposing and empirically testing platform attributes-conversion model, examine how platform characteristics influence the renting decision of a consumer and how it subsequently lead to conversion. A mix method design was adopted for the study and a pilot study comprising of 341 respondents was carried out. The study focuses on six key attributes - occupational mobility, psychological ownership, complementary services, social gratification, perceived value, and customization, while identifying the most important attributes for renting furniture online. Full article

Although the increasing mobile technology applies in our daily lives, there remain questions that clearly illustrate the experience inspired by the mobile technology environment. It is theoretically and practically meaningful to systematically reveal how mobile technology generates users’ virtual experience and, subsequently, the behavioral response. To fill the gaps, drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response model, this paper regards flow as the core experience based on the features of the mobile users’ experience. The framework is that mobile technology will promote users’ virtual experience, and in turn, affect their behavioral response. This study uses online survey data from 452 respondents. We employ the structural equation model based on the partial least squares method and further mediation analysis by the Sobel test to validate the research hypotheses. Our results show that the mobile technology environment has a significantly positive effect on users’ purchase intention/return mediated by the virtual experience. However, the direct relationship between ubiquity and flow, as well as telepresence and intention to purchase/return, are not significant. Finally, a few theoretical and managerial contributions are also discussed. Full article

Push-Pull-Mooring framework is adopted to identify the antecedents affecting users’ switching intention from Internet payment to mobile payment. Using the data obtained from 264 valid respondents, the results show that both the mooring factors (perceived switching cost and personal innovativeness) and pull factors (relative advantages of substitute information technology and critical mass) are direct antecedents affecting customer switching behavior. In addition, mooring factors could moderate the relationship between push factors (dissatisfaction on system quality and dissatisfaction on service quality) as well as pull factors and customer switching intention. Managerial implications of findings were provided to payment service providers for maintaining incumbent customers and attracting potential customers. Full article

Contrary to the traditional economic prediction that prices decrease as more firms enter the market, this paper finds a non-monotonic relationship between the number of firms and prices in online book markets. A substantial decrease in posted prices is observed when the market moves from a monopoly to duopoly. Surprisingly, as the market further expands, posted prices converge to monopoly price rather than competitive price. This is because as the number of sellers increase on the internet, the cost for consumers to obtain accurate information as well as the cost to evaluate products and sellers increase. Thus, the existence of a large number of sellers deter consumer search and lead to more random purchases. With little consumer search, sellers’ returns to undercutting price reduce. Therefore, instead of lowering price when faced with more competitors, sellers increase prices. Full article

User reviews are a new source of information in the hospitality and tourism sector. Usually, these reviews contain comments of users and assessments expressed through ordered qualitative scales. The website Booking.com uses a smiley face scale to ask users the degree of satisfaction regarding several aspects of accommodations. The scoring system of the website assigns numerical values to each item of the smiley face scale. However, when users perceive different proximities between pairs of items of an ordered qualitative scale, these numerical codifications are because they may misrepresent the original ordinal information. In this paper, we analyze the drawbacks and limitations of the scoring system of Booking.com and we manage its smiley face scale through a purely ordinal procedure. This procedure avoids assigning numerical codifications to items of scales and it takes into account how users perceive the proximities between pairs of items. The findings show the importance of considering how users understand qualitative scales when they face subjective assessments through ordered qualitative scales. Full article

Proliferation of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat and others among their numerous strengths unfortunately came along with some inconveniences such as uncertainty users face during communication. The aim of this study is to determine the preference of Social Networking Sites for uncertainty reduction by international students and local community. The research adopted quantitative methodology to find out international students’ preference of Social Networking Sites with respect to reducing the level of uncertainty. In line with previous research, results of the study indicate a direct relationship between preference of SNSs and low-level of uncertainty. Thus, the results reveal that active, passive and interactive strategies used by the international students play an important role in the degree of uncertainty faced by the local and international students. Full article

The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of trust transfer and online contents on purchase intention in the online-to-offline e-commerce. A partial least squares based structural equation model was utilized to test the framework of causality and a series of multivariate analyses of variance were conducted to test the effects of online content size. The partial least squares results indicate that trust transfer from online-to-offline platforms to offline merchants, perceived effectiveness of online product reviews as well as perceived effectiveness of numerical ratings positively influence trust in merchants directly and purchase intention indirectly, while perceived effectiveness of online production descriptions shows no significant effect. The multivariate analyses of variance results confirm the positive effects of review number and picture number on customer trust toward merchants and purchase intention. The multivariate analyses of variance results also support the positive effects of review length when a merchant has a high review balance. This research contributes to e-commerce and behavior literature by investigating how trust transfer and online contents engage customers and induce their purchase behaviors in online-to-offline commerce. It also assists leading a better online-to-offline outcome for online-to-offline platforms and offline merchants in the highly competitive online-to-offline markets. Full article

The purpose of this paper was to identify the most significant factors and issues concerning a successful Pre-Commercial Procurement in the Slovak and Czech markets and to validate a conceptual model developed to describe relations within all procurement phases with more detailed exploratory attributes. Number of price changes within the negotiation phase (generally in electronic dynamic pricing environment) and volume of procurement were identified as the most crucial determinants of savings, with a positive and negative effect on the success of Pre-Commercial Procurement respectively. Selection of auction type affects the number of participants and number of new participants in the auction, with less transparent auction types being more attractive for suppliers than transparent types. Further, Pre-Commercial Procurement was compared to traditional procurement of common products and services, identifying differences in number of participants and total volume of auctions. A survey conducted identified the critical need to improve innovation driven sourcing ecosystem to make the market more transparent for identification of suitable suppliers but also for the procurer to be more visible on the market when procurement is taking the place. The developed conceptual framework with tested relations can be a guide to proper Pre-Commercial Procurement procurement setting. Full article

This study investigates the various motivations to equity crowdfunding in Malaysia. A total of 169 responses from survey questionnaires are used to test the relationships using Structural Equation Modelling-Partial Least Squares. Investigation into the influence of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators on the willingness to support equity crowdfunding shows that the financial motive is insignificant in influencing the decision. Among the intrinsic motivators, aesthetic value, emotional value, novelty and trust are highly significant and the desire to be part of a community is the only intrinsic motivator that is insignificant. The willingness to support has a positive influence on the likelihood to invest in equity crowdfunding. Full article

Process mining in the context of information systems, which consists of information flows, has been one of the major research areas in the past decade. One of the most common objectives of process mining is the automated business process discovery. There are many challenges in the business process discovery, such as spaghetti models, same-name activities, and discovering loop structures. The researchers have presented a variety of methods that focus on one or more challenges. Due to the importance of commercial systems and the diversity of flows in them, in this research, the process mining problem in the context of social commerce systems is studied. Moreover, the research objective is to present a new method for commercial process discovery that has not been considered before. The proposed method is based on network analysis methods, multi-layered networks (networks with heterogeneous relations), and attributed networks. The results obtained from the proposed method are more precise and more comfortable to understand than the previous ones. Full article

Mobile coupons have significantly enhanced marketing and e-commerce. To assess the benefits of mobile coupon apps, which are unavailable with traditional coupons, we examined users’ motivations for obtaining and redeeming mobile bonus coupons from a customer value perspective. We collected coupon issue and redemption data from a mobile coupon app and used it to analyze the effects of various factors on coupon issue and redemption. Using the days of coupon issue as a control variable, we tested bonus-type and buy-one-get-onefree- type coupons separately. We applied negative binomial regression for the tests and used a standardized number of issuing days, face value, price, and brand popularity. Our findings indicate that a coupon’s functional (face value and product price) and social (brand popularity) values significantly affect mobile coupon issue and redemption. Furthermore, the effects of social value on coupon issue and redemption vary by coupon type-bonus or buy-one-get-one-free. These results can help marketing and e-commerce practitioners to take advantage of the benefits of issuing the optimal mobile coupons for the right products. Full article

The technology of mobile payments has received more attention than ever. However, whether it is possible that mobile payment will become a common payment method for consumers depends on the willingness of consumers. This study focuses on the intention from cash payment to mobile payment and adopts a qualitative and quantitative approach based on the theoretical structure of the Transaction Cost & the Push-Pull-Mooring Migration Model of Service Switching. Firstly, the Delphi Method was applied to extract three push variables (perceived trouble, perceived lack of transaction records, and difficulty of paying large amounts in cash) and three pull variables (perceived convenience, perceived benefit, and perceived time-saving). After surveying 586 samples, this proposed model was tested with a structural equation modeling approach. Results: 1. the pull facet tends to be more significant than the push facet. 2. Perceived trouble had a significant effect on push factors, while perceived convenience and perceived benefit had a significant effect on pull factors. 3. Push-&-pull factors had significant effect on behavior of gender-&-age. And the-transaction-costs can divide into positive-transaction-costs and negative-transaction-costs after incorporating the Push-Pull-Mooring theory. Full article

Currently, customer segmentation is one of the most relevant and powerful tools for explaining customer behaviour in e-commerce and enables brands to develop personalized acquisition and retention strategies for each cluster rather than generic, one size fits all strategies that are no longer valid[...] Full article