Use Of Sellers Research Articles

Buyers apping? Determinants of current and future use of sellers' business-to-business mobile apps

The success of sellers' business-to-business (B2B) mobile applications (apps) hinges on buyers' continued use in their purchasing process. Such engagement with a seller's app is critical as it can add to the seller's bottom line. Building on an integrated model (task–technology fit [TTF], user satisfaction and self-efficacy), this research explores job- and individual-related factors that may influence buyers' current and future use of B2B mobile apps. Responses from 193 executive B2B buyers indicate that TTF directly influences future use while user satisfaction and self-efficacy directly influence current use of B2B mobile apps. Furthermore, current use of B2B mobile apps fully mediates the paths from user satisfaction and self-efficacy to future use. Only technology characteristics affect TTF. These findings provide insights into current and future use of B2B mobile apps for theory and practice.

Sequential Mechanisms with Ex Post Individual Rationality

Online multiproduct sellers increasingly use interactive selling strategies to customize their offers to individual buyers. For example, a seller may adjust the prices of products dynamically based on user interaction and offer discounts for buying bundles of products. What selling strategy should such a seller use to maximize profit? In “Sequential Mechanisms with ex Post Individual Rationality,” I. Ashlagi, C. Daskalakis, and N. Haghpanah provide a recursive characterization of the optimal selling strategy. This characterization is used to identify conditions under which the ability to bundle products is less profitable for the seller than the ability to adjust prices dynamically.

Platform Service Offering to Business Customers: Strategic Considerations in Engendering Seller Use of Marketing Tools

Strategic consideration of competitor and consumer reactions in third-party sellers’ use of marketing tools on e-commerce platforms.

What do Airbnb hosts reveal by posting photographs online and how does it affect their perceived trustworthiness?

AbstractThe use of sellers' personal photographs online is ubiquitous in sharing economy platforms such as Airbnb. This paper addresses two questions. First, what type of personal photos do hosts choose to post on Airbnb? Second, which of the characteristics of their photos affects their perceived trustworthiness? We answer these questions by building a structural equation model of the relation between the characteristics of the photos and the perceived trustworthiness of the hosts. The antecedents of trust in this model were defined based on insights from psychology regarding first impressions. We found that the hosts' visual characteristics (e.g., gender) as revealed in their online photographs affect their perceived trustworthiness both directly and indirectly via attractiveness. We also found that image characteristics, which are not related directly to the traits of the host in the picture (e.g., photograph quality), play a significant role in trust inference. Interestingly, the hosts' choices of their personal photos suggest that they may not be aware of these effects.

THE RESEARCH OF ENTERPRISES WE MEDIA MARKETING’S INFLUENCE ON BRAND LOYALTY

THE RESEARCH OF ENTERPRISES WE MEDIA MARKETING’S INFLUENCE ON BRAND LOYALTY

What in a Photo Makes You Trust a Person Online? A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

The use of sellers’ personal photos online is ubiquitous in sharing economy platforms such as Airbnb. These photos generate immediate inferences (first impressions) of people’s trustworthiness that affect online transactions. In this paper, we use a structural equation model (SEM) to examine the complex effects of different facial and image characteristics on the perceived trustworthiness of 320 Airbnb hosts based on their photos. We find that basic facial characteristics such as age, gender, and smile directly affect the perceived trustworthiness of hosts. The use of the structural equation model allows us to differentiate between the direct effects of these characteristics on perceived trustworthiness and their indirect effects that operate via attractiveness. We also show that image characteristics such as photo quality and the inclusion of other people, which are not directly related to the person whose trustworthiness is being assessed, play a significant role in trust inference.

DO REAL ESTATE BROKERS ADD VALUE WHEN LISTING SERVICES ARE UNBUNDLED?

This paper measures the effects of real estate brokerage services provided to sellers, other than MLS listings, on the terms and timing of home sales. It is not obvious that sellers benefit from those services. On the one hand, brokers offer potentially useful knowledge and expertise. On the other hand, because the relationship between the homeowner and the broker resembles a classical principal‐agent problem, the broker may not deploy services in ways that promote the seller's interests. Yet as long as valuable MLS listings are bundled with brokerage services, homeowners may use brokers even if the agency costs exceed the benefits of brokers' knowledge and expertise. Thus, quantification of the net value of brokerage services other than MLS listings bears directly on the recent policy debate over the desirability unbundling of MLS listings. We estimate the effect of a seller's decision to use a broker on list prices, selling prices, and speed of sale for a real estate market with an unusual and critical characteristic: it has a single open‐access listing service that is used by essentially all sellers, regardless of whether they employ brokers. Our central finding is that, when listings are not tied to brokerage services, a seller's use of a broker reduces the selling price of the typical home by 5.9% to 7.7%, which indicates that agency costs exceed the advantages of brokers' knowledge and expertise by a wide margin. (JEL D12, R31, L85)

Electronic and Physical Market Channels: A Multiyear Investigation in a Market for Products of Uncertain Quality

Many markets that have traditionally relied on collocation of buyers, sellers, and products have introduced electronic channels. Although these electronic channels may provide benefits to buyers and sellers by lowering the transaction costs of participating in the market, there are trade-offs related to quality uncertainty and increased risk that may limit the adoption of the electronic channels. As a result, buyers and sellers use physical channels for some transactions and electronic channels for others. These usage patterns may evolve over time, particularly when the electronic channels are new. We examine buyer and seller use of electronic and physical channels in a market for products of uncertain quality (used vehicles) over a 2.5-year period. Results indicate that transactions involving low quality uncertainty and relatively rare products occurred in the electronic channels, whereas transactions involving high quality uncertainty and relatively plentiful products occurred in the physical channels. These patterns became clearer over time as buyers and sellers gained experience with the electronic channels. The electronic channels led to discounts for products of high quality uncertainty, but not for those of low quality uncertainty.

Discriminatory Auctions with Seller Discretion: Evidence from German Treasury Auctions

This paper examines the results of 93 discriminatory German Treasury auctions between 1998 and 2002. It documents the seller's use of discretion and its influence on auction outcomes and bidding strategies. The evidence suggests that the seller uses its discretion frequently and substantially. It does not maximize revenues in a single-period game, but moves up in the competitive demand curve to set the auction price close to the market price. Bidders do not make profits in German auctions on average, while their bidding strategies reflect the uncertainty created by the seller's discretion. The paper extends and tests the multi-unit auction model by Lengwiler (1999). The empirical evidence is consistent with the implication that the market-clearing price depends on the seller's marginal cost rather than on the submitted demand.

Discriminatory Auctions in which the Seller has Discretion

This paper examines the results of 93 discriminatory German Treasury auctions between 1998 and 2002. It documents the seller's use of discretion and its influence on auction outcomes and bidding strategies. The evidence suggests that the seller uses its discretion frequently and substantially. It does not maximize revenues in a single-period game, but moves up in the competitive demand curve to set the auction price close to the market price. Bidders do not make profits in German auctions, while their bidding strategies reflect the uncertainty created by the seller's discretion. The paper extends and tests the multi-unit auction model by Lengwiler (1999). This predicts that the market-clearing price should be independent of the bidding strategies and exclusively depend on the seller's marginal cost. The results in this paper broadly support this prediction.

Don't be your own best customer?Drug use of San Francisco gang drug sellers

In general, it is believed that most retail drug sellers, those who sell small amounts, use the drugs they sell and that drug sales is undertaken not only for the purpose of making money but to get the drugs they desire or need. In a few instances there have been accounts of groups who rationalized drug sales to maximize profits and as a result did not use the drugs they sold, but the literature on the topic of the drug use of sellers has been sketchy. This paper will report preliminary findings of a survey of 300 gang members in San Francisco about the drug use of gang drug sellers. These findings reveal that the majority of gang crack sellers, who are usually African-American, donot use crack themselves while the majority of marijuana, powder cocaine and heroin sellers do use the drugs they sell. In general, African-American gangs that sell crack in San Francisco have rules about the use of crack by sellers and believe that it is highly addictive drug that is bad for business and is contrary to a gang principle of “being down” for the “hood” and other gang members.

Trade Regulation. Price Discrimination. Seller's Use of Geographic Price Discrimination between Noncompeting Purchasers to Injury of His Competitor's Business Violates Section 2(a) of Clayton Act

Trade Regulation. Price Discrimination. Seller's Use of Geographic Price Discrimination between Noncompeting Purchasers to Injury of His Competitor's Business Violates Section 2(a) of Clayton Act