Speaker： Liu Hefu，Professor, University of Science and Technology of China

Time：15:30, Mar.9th, 2021 Tuesday

Venue：Tongji Building Block A Room 208

Abstract:

The preponderance of omni-channel retailing has culminated in challenges for third-party e-marketplace platforms. On one hand, platforms, in a bid to retain sellers, are compelled to support Online-Offline Channel Integration (OOCI). However, OOCI could encourage customers to switch to physical stores, thereby adversely affecting platforms’ product sales growth. On the other hand, platforms also face competitive pressure from rival platforms. To determine how OOCI-enabled platforms can outperform in such complex situations, we collected data from 52,040 products on a dominant Chinese e-marketplace platform and 213 sellers’ information on inter-platform function usage difference. Using propensity score matching and a hierarchical linear model, this study showed that informational OOCI, such as highlighting the particular products’ availability in physical stores through the online website (SAME), negatively influenced platform’s product sales growth, while the role of physical OOCI, such as the option of buy online pickup in store (BOPS), was not significant. Moreover, three sub-dimensions of seller’s inter-platform function usage difference (i.e., volume difference, category orientation difference, and uniqueness) have different effects on regulating the role of OOCI on platform’s product sales growth. Together, these findings provide important guidelines for both OOCI-enabled platforms and sellers to operate in omni-channel retailing.