Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP14308
Authors: Franz Hackl; Michael Hoelzlleitner; Rudolf Winterebmer; Christine Zulehner
Abstract: The choice of an appropriate e-commerce strategy for the listing in price comparison platforms (eBay, Amazon, price search engines) is crucial for the survival of online stores in B2C e-commerce business. We use a comprehensive data set from the Austrian price search engine geizhals.at to identify successful e-commerce strategies with regard to these listing decisions. An e-commerce strategy is a set of choices including listing, availability, and decisions on the price path and shipping cost. We apply cluster analysis to identify the different strategies that have been used by online retailers. Using various success measures such as revenue, clicks, market share, and the survival of firms we present causal evidence on the effectiveness of different e-commerce strategies.
Keywords: ecommerce; online trade; business strategies; retailing
JEL Codes: L81; L10
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| instock offers (L81) | higher clicks (Y10) |
| instock offers (L81) | higher revenues (H27) |
| longshot offer (D44) | decrease in clicks (Y10) |
| longshot offer (D44) | decrease in last-click-throughs (D49) |
| longshot offer (D44) | decrease in revenues (F69) |
| permanent offers (M51) | higher probability of survival (C41) |
| instock offers (L81) | lower probability of survival (J17) |