دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی تاثیر استراتژی های بستر خرید آنلاین بر جستجو، نمایش و درآمد عضویت - الزویر 2018

Abstract

Most online shopping platform firms generate revenue from three sources: pay-per-click search advertising, pay-per-impression display advertising, and membership fees. The strategies that influence these revenue sources typically are studied individually, rather than in a holistic fashion. In response, this study uses time-series data with 18 million buyers and sellers from 2010 to 2011 and undertakes a quasi-experiment to analyze how the distinct effects of buyer- and seller-side strategies on revenues (1) vary across all three revenue sources and (2) depend differentially on a platform’s upmarket repositioning strategy. The results show that buyers that purchase through direct traffic (e.g., typing in the site address) yield more display advertising and membership fee revenues than those gained through organic traffic (e.g., landing from a search engine). Engagement strategies that appeal to established sellers (i.e., value-added services) yield more search advertising and membership revenue than those that appeal to new sellers (i.e., social forums). An upmarket repositioning strategy (i.e., eliminating low quality sellers) enhances the revenue effects of buyer traffic generation and seller engagement strategies. Post hoc analyses suggest that a 1% increase in direct traffic generates an additional $151,506 in display advertising revenue after (vs. before) the repositioning.

Discussion

Our holistic, conceptual framework sheds new light on online platform business models by combining three distinctive revenue sources (i.e., search advertising, display advertising, and membership fees) and buyer- and seller-side strategies. With a unique quasi-experiment, we examine which buyer traffic generation and seller engagement strategies generate the most, in terms of each revenue source, as well as how their effectiveness shifts due to an upmarket repositioning strategy. Our findings produce both theoretical and managerial insights.

Theoretical Implications

This study offers a comprehensive framework with respect to three different platform revenue streams, each operating in a different way (Fig. 1). With the recognition that “many online businesses combine multiple revenue streams” (Lambrecht et al. 2014, p. 332), yet that most extant findings focus on individual revenue sources (Fang et al. 2015; Tucker and Zhang 2010) or on an aggregate level of revenues (Grewal, Chakravarty, and Saini 2010; Zhang et al. 2012), this article offers a more complete picture of online platform business models.