Search

Online marketplaces are growing rapidly globally. They have the potential to significantly benefit women; however, these benefits are not guaranteed. A lack of information on the benefits of or how to participate in online marketplaces could mean womenʼs participation is at an inefficiently low level. Participation could also bring about unintended consequences. We introduce this special issue of Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies on the social and economic benefits of online marketplaces for women in Asia. In this introduction, we set the context for the special issue, then provide an overview of its seven papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current online marketplaces, characterized by a high number of sellers and the velocity of offerings, make service differentiation difficult for sellers. One particularly promising avenue for sellers (in this study: individuals) beyond classical demand‐side approaches (i.e., prices) is to employ linguistic descriptions of their offerings. Yet, it remains mostly unclear what constitutes "successful" linguistic strategies. To elaborate on this, the current paper mines more than 2000 unique service offerings on Fiverr.com, a leading online marketplace for freelance services. By distinguishing between different service categories (i.e., hedonic and utilitarian services) and other characteristics of individual sellers (e.g., the origin of a seller), the paper analyzes the linguistic service descriptions via the Linguistic Inquirer and Word Counts (LIWC) and provides an empirical taxonomy of linguistic styles among individuals. Although the paper is novel and explorative, a few interesting insights can be obtained. First, there are significant linguistic differences in how sellers describe their service offerings depending on the service category (hedonic/utilitarian). Second, linguistic proxies of complexity, namely, words per sentence, six‐letter words, and the overall word count (i.e., increasing informational content) as well as signals of analytical language, appear to be a beneficial strategy for sellers. Third, a linguistic strategy aimed at matching (congruence) of service categories (hedonic/utilitarian) and linguistic styles (analytical/emotional) appears to be beneficial. The results have important implications for creating linguistic strategies in online marketplaces focused on services on the supply side. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid marketplaces, such as Amazon's and Zalando's stores or Apple's and Google's app stores, which distribute their own products and services in competition with those of third‐party sellers, play a significant and growing role in the Internet economy. This paper shows that, other things equal, such platforms would maximize their profits if they lowered the fees charged to sellers and the prices charged to consumers in response to cooperation agreements between third‐party sellers: horizontal mergers or collusive agreements. It also shows that such cooperation can be pro‐competitive when the platform is a vertically integrated gatekeeper, adopts the agency business model, is a close competitor to the third‐party sellers it hosts, and observes (or correctly anticipates) the third‐party sellers' agreement. The discussion here is of significant policy relevance, since third‐party sellers in online marketplaces may find it easier to collude and may respond to the bargaining power of certain gatekeeper platforms by merging their activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Philippinesʼ first nationally representative survey designed to characterise digital commercial and non‐commercial engagements, including the use of information and communications technology (ICT), the digital economy, and technology‐enabled activities, we investigate the presence of gendered disparities in online marketplaces. This is consistent with the spirit of a gender and development approach that aims for equitable outcomes between men and women. We verify whether the observed participation of women in online marketplaces results in higher online sales. To establish the determinants of participation in and incomes from online marketplaces, we use a Heckman estimator in cognisance of the non‐random choices people make when they enter online marketplaces. The negative selection indicates that those likely to sell have unobserved attributes negatively correlated with online income. Based on our modelʼs income predictions, men outperform women in online sales and hold the advantage, replicating a trend observed in traditional marketplaces. Results also highlight the importance of skills, digital awareness and habits, selling platforms, and ICT infrastructure. The paper also identifies potential initiatives for online marketplaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online marketplaces are rapidly shifting the trajectory of the e‐commerce landscape. Brand manufacturers are starkly more dependent on online marketplaces, and for most brands, marketplace presence is not optional but mandatory. At this point, brand executives face a pivotal question in addressing their marketplace presence: What product selling (or distribution) approach should be adopted to leverage this channel for their brand? At its core, there are effectively two options offered to brand executives: selling to the online marketplace (as a 1p vendor); and selling on the marketplace platform (as a 3p seller). Whereas the conventional 1p vendor model is quintessentially the entry point to an online marketplace, some brand manufacturers migrate to the 3p seller model. Many others, however, avoid pulling the 3p trigger. In this paper, we address these two options a brand manufacturer has for selling (or allowing sales of) his product on a marketplace. On the grounds that online marketplaces retain brands at distinct price/quality tiers so as to be both comprehensive and robust, we propose a model of competition between two brand manufacturers whose products (in a category) are vertically differentiated on a quality/performance attribute and a convex marginal production cost is incurred for providing the higher quality. Given there is no single selling strategy on a marketplace that is ideal for all brand manufacturers and strategies would work the best under different market and competitive conditions, we investigate the impact of where a brand stands (vis‐á‐vis his competitor) on the two dimensions of a product‐attribute space on the transitions of 1p brands to 3p sellers on the marketplace platform. We also extend the analysis to the setting where an online retailer decides on whether or not to add a marketplace platform to her existing online marketplace and (if so) on the referral fee percentage at which the product category would be listed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online shopping revenues in the United States were $520 billion 2018, a more than threefold increase over a decade prior. Recent research on county‐level shares of consumer expenditures conducted online shows aggregate consumer gains but also considerable spatial variation, creating a new source of social inequality. Through the lens of classical retail location theory, this paper uses a novel approach to test the effects of marginalization, by both income and remoteness, on online shopping behavior. We find that increased shipping costs weaken demand for online goods across consumer groups. When the costs of shipping are controlled for, distance from a city most strongly motivates low‐income counties to engage in online shopping, reflecting sensitivity to cost reductions. However, variations in cost and cost/distance ratios have little effect for this group, because if shipping surcharges exist, which they almost always do at high levels, consumers in these counties will forego online shopping. Medium‐income counties are sensitive to variations in cost and cost/distance ratios. The highest‐income counties display no response to the marginal costs of remoteness. In sum, online shopping benefits consumers living in counties marginalized by either remoteness or low income but not both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is designed to remedy the tendency of existing studies to analyze online marketplaces as either sites of work or trading arenas. We argue that the theoretical notion of "social infrastructure" is particularly apt to offer a comprehensive framework that captures the unique intersection of work and trade in online marketplaces. We study the social infrastructure of an online marketplace: the institutions, conditions and forms, and the horizontal and vertical ties between actors that organize work and enable trading. The social infrastructure of online marketplaces deserves research attention because it represents an essential condition for economic activities. In our empirical section we focus on the online marketplace Etsy to illustrate our comprehensive theoretical framework and we identify a complex dynamic between the decided and emergent order of the online marketplace. We demonstrate that the attempt to superimpose order through the constitution of an online marketplace is challenged by sellers and buyers. We find that both dimensions, work and trade, provide actors with material and symbolic resources that inform their strategies and economic actions. The article suggests that "social infrastructure" is a concrete theoretical tool for analyzing online marketplaces that complements existing research on platforms and ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aimed to examine the factors affecting the participation of female rural–urban migrants in online marketplaces, and the welfare gains and their distribution. Our analysis was based on a unique dataset of rural households, villages, and rural–urban migrants in Thailand and Vietnam. Online market participation is classified into three activities: financial transactions, trading, and business. We accounted for the endogeneity issue of online market participation in the assessment of welfare impact by using an instrumental variable approach. Our results show that participation has a positive effect on the consumption of female migrants only when they participate in the complete bundle of online market activities. In addition, we find that the poor benefit insignificantly from online marketplaces. This raises a concern about increasing welfare inequality and suggests the poor should be supported so they are not left behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a supply chain where a manufacturer directly sells products to end consumers through an online marketplace operated by an e‐tailer, where the e‐tailer is a leader and the manufacturer is a follower. Logistics service is a key influence factor to online marketplace. We present four service channels: (1) E‐channel, the e‐tailer offers the service; (2) E3P‐channel, the e‐tailer outsources the service to a 3PL; (3) M‐channel, the manufacture offers the service; and (4) M3P‐channel, the manufacture outsources the service to a 3PL. This study investigates the optimal decisions and profits for e‐tailer and manufacturer among different service channels, respectively, equilibrium choice of service channel and examines the consistency on choosing the service channel between them. We find that whether the market demand is a log‐separable function form or a linear function form, when the fraction of supply chain revenue sharing is large, E‐channel is the equilibrium choice, otherwise M‐channel is the equilibrium one. Further, we use the sharing fraction threshold gap between e‐tailer and manufacturer to describe the extent of the consistency on choosing the service channel. We find increasing demand sensitivity to service level or decreasing cost sensitivity to service level would enhance the consistency. Moreover, we extend to analysis with linear demand function and different service costs for firms. Finally, the e‐tailer or the manufacturer switches to outsource service to a 3PL when the service cost of the 3PL is not large. Specifically, the 3PL also benefits from the consistent service channel choice under certain condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a lab experiment to investigate how providing the responder with options to reward and/or punish the proposer postacceptance affects behavior in ultimatum bargaining. We find that the presence of costly reward and punishment options affects behavior of both bargaining parties, even if those instruments are rarely used. Proposers are most generous when responders can both reward and punish, and offer least (even compared to the baseline) when responders can only reward. The likelihood of acceptance by responders, conditional on offer size, increases. The least generous offers have the highest chance of being accepted in the presence of punishment alone, even when punishment is not applied. It appears that the availability of additional instruments changes subjects' perception of the distribution of bargaining power and shifts fairness norms. The results have implications for optimal contract design in posted offer settings, such as decentralized online marketplaces for various tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]