E-Commerce Commons^™

What Should Streamers Communicate In Livestream E-Commerce? The Effects Of Social Interactions On Live Streaming Performance, Danyang Song, Xi Chen, Zhiling Guo, Xiao Liu Liu, Ruijin. Jin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Compared with traditional e-commerce, livestreaming e-commerce is characterized by direct and intimate communication between streamers and consumers that stimulates instant social interactions. This study focuses on streamers’ three types of information exchange (i.e., product information, social conversation, and social solicitation) and examines their roles in driving both short-term and long-term livestreaming performance (i.e., sales and customer base growth). We find that the informational role of product information (nonpromotional and promotional) is beneficial not only to sales performance, but also to the growth of the customer base. We also find that social conversation has a relationship-building effect that positively impacts both …

Investigating Accessibility Challenges And Opportunities For Users With Low Vision Disabilities In Customer-To-Customer (C2c) Marketplaces, Bektur Ryskeldiev, Kotaro Hara, Mariko Kobayashi, Koki Kusano

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Inaccessible e-commerce websites and mobile applications exclude people with visual impairments (PVI) from online shopping. Customer-to-customer (C2C) marketplaces, a form of e-commerce where trading happens not between businesses and customers but between customers, could pose a unique set of challenges in the interactions that the platform brings about. Through online questionnaire and remote interviews, we investigate problems experienced by people with low vision disabilities in common C2C scenarios. Our study with low vision participants (N = 12) reveal both previously known general accessibility issues (e.g., web and mobile interface accessibility) and C2C specific accessibility issues (e.g., inability to confirm item …

Toward Personalized Answer Generation In E-Commerce Via Multi-Perspective Preference Modeling, Yang Deng, Yaliang Li, Wenxuan Zhang, Bolin Ding, Wai Lam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recently, Product Question Answering (PQA) on E-Commerce platforms has attracted increasing attention as it can act as an intelligent online shopping assistant and improve the customer shopping experience. Its key function, automatic answer generation for product-related questions, has been studied by aiming to generate content-preserving while question-related answers. However, an important characteristic of PQA, i.e., personalization, is neglected by existing methods. It is insufficient to provide the same “completely summarized” answer to all customers, since many customers are more willing to see personalized answers with customized information only for themselves, by taking into consideration their own preferences toward product aspects …

Dynamic Return Relationships In The Market For Cryptocurrency: A Var Approach, Julian Gouffray

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

This paper examines how the Bitcoin-altcoin return relationship has evolved in periods between 2015 and 2020. To understand this relation, we observe data on the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and prominent altcoins Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Stellar, and Monero, which collectively represent over 90% of the market throughout the observed period. We employ a vector autoregressive model (VAR) to produce forecast error variance decompositions, orthogonal impulse response functions, and Granger-causality tests. We find evidence that Bitcoin return variation has increasingly explained altcoin returns and that market inefficiency increased between 2017 and 2020, as shown by increased Granger causality between Bitcoin and altcoins. These …

Learning To Ask Critical Questions For Assisting Product Search, Zixuan Li, Lizi Liao, Tat-Seng Chua

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Product search plays an essential role in eCommerce. It was treated as a special type of information retrieval problem. Most existing works make use of historical data to improve the search performance, which do not take the opportunity to ask for user’s current interest directly. Some session-aware methods take the user’s clicks within the session as implicit feedback, but it is still just a guess on user’s preference. To address this problem, recent conversational or question-based search models interact with users directly for understanding the user’s interest explicitly. However, most users do not have a clear picture on what to …

Small Business Cybersecurity: A Loophole To Consumer Data, Matthew R. Espinosa

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Small businesses and small minority owned businesses are vital to our nation’s economy; therefore legislation, regulation, and policy has been created in order to assist them in overcoming their economic stability issues and ensure they continue to serve the communities that rely on them. However, there is not a focus on regulating nor assisting small businesses to ensure their cybersecurity standards are up to par despite them increasingly becoming a victim of cyberattacks that yield high consequences. The external oversight and assistance is necessary for small businesses due to their lack of knowledge in implementing effective cybersecurity policies, the fiscal …

New-Media Advertising And Retail Platform Openness, Jianqing Chen, Zhiling Guo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We recently have witnessed two important trends in online retailing: the advent of new media (e.g., social media and search engines) makes advertising affordable for small sellers, and large online retailers (e.g., Amazon and JD.com) opening their platforms to allow even direct competitors to sell on their platforms. We examine how new-media advertising affects retail platform openness. We develop a game-theoretic model in which a leading retailer, who has both valuation and awareness advantages, and a third-party seller, who sells an identical product, engage in price competition. We find that the availability of relatively low-cost advertising through new media plays …

Fake Review Detection, Michael Husk, Faryaneh Poursardar (Mentor)

Computer & Information Science: Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Disinformation Detection and Analytics

No abstract provided.

Face To Purchase: Predicting Consumer Choices With Structured Facial And Behavioral Traits Embedding, Zhe Liu, Xianzhi Wang, Lina Yao, Jake An, Lei Bai, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Predicting consumers’ purchasing behaviors is critical for targeted advertisement and sales promotion in e-commerce. Human faces are an invaluable source of information for gaining insights into consumer personality and behavioral traits. However, consumer's faces are largely unexplored in previous research, and the existing face-related studies focus on high-level features such as personality traits while neglecting the business significance of learning from facial data. We propose to predict consumers’ purchases based on their facial features and purchasing histories. We design a semi-supervised model based on a hierarchical embedding network to extract high-level features of consumers and to predict the top-N purchase …

Partnering For Value Perfection And Business Sustainability In The Cloud Services Brokerage Market, Richard Shang, Robert John Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The cloud computing and services market has advanced in the past ten years. They now include most IT services from fundamental computing to cutting-edge AI capabilities. With the widespread adoption of cloud services, clients are facing the fact that they are utilizing cloud resources at a sub-optimal level. Cloud services brokers (CSBs) grew from the market to fill the needs for cloud resource management and risk mitigation. Based on analysis of the cloud market and the case of cloud services brokerage and related activities in North America, we offer theoretical analysis for how value creation works, its impacts on the …

The Effect Of Touch Simulation In Virtual Reality Shopping, Ha Kyung Lee, Namhee Yoon, Dooyoung Choi

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This study aims to explore the effect of touch simulation on virtual reality (VR) store satisfaction mediated by VR shopping self-efficacy and VR shopping pleasure. The moderation effects of the autotelic and instrumental need for touch between touch simulation and VR store satisfaction are also explored. Participants wear a head-mounted display VR device (Oculus Go) in a controlled laboratory environment, and their VR store experience is recorded as data. All participants’ responses (n = 58) are analyzed using SPSS 20.0 for descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and the Process macro model analysis. The results show that touch simulation …

Do Sequels Outperform Or Disappoint? Insights From An Analysis Of Amazon Echo Consumer Reviews, Kyong Jin Shim, Siaw Ling Lo, Su Yee Liew

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Rapid technological advances in recent years drastically transformed our world. Amidst modern technological inventions such as smart phones, smart watches and smart home devices, consumers of electronic digital devices experience greatly improved automation, productivity, and efficiency in conducting routine daily tasks, information searching, shopping as well as finding entertainment. In the last few years, the global smart speaker market has undergone significant growth. As technology continues to advance and smart speakers are equipped with innovative features, the adoption of smart speakers will increase and so will consumer expectations. This research paper presents an aspect-specific sentiment analysis of consumer reviews of …

Civiic: Cybercrime In Virginia: Impacts On Industry And Citizens Final Report, Randy Gainey, Tancy Vandecar-Burdin, Jay Albanese, Thomas Dearden, James Hawdon, Katalin Parti

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

[First paragraph] Victimization from cybercrime is a major concern in Virginia, the US, and the world. As individuals and businesses spend more time online, it becomes increasingly important to understand cybercrime and how to protect against it. Such an understanding is dependent on valid and reliable baseline data that identifies the specific nature, extent, and outcomes of cybercrime activity. A better understanding of cybercrime activity is needed to target and prevent it more effectively, minimize its consequences, and provide support for both individual and corporate victims. Before that can occur, however, better baseline data are required, and this project was …

Ready Raider One: Exploring The Misuse Of Cloud Gaming Services, Guannan Liu, Daiping Liu, Shuai Hao, Xing Gao, Kun Sun, Haining Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Cloud gaming has become an emerging computing paradigm in recent years, allowing computer games to offload complex graphics and logic computation to the cloud. To deliver a smooth and high-quality gaming experience, cloud gaming services have invested abundant computing resources in the cloud, including adequate CPUs, top-tier GPUs, and high-bandwidth Internet connections. Unfortunately, the abundant computing resources offered by cloud gaming are vulnerable to misuse and exploitation for malicious purposes. In this paper, we present an in-depth study on security vulnerabilities in cloud gaming services. Specifically, we reveal that adversaries can purposely inject malicious programs/URLs into the cloud gaming services …

Functional Signatures: New Definition And Constructions, Qingwen Guo, Qiong Huang, Sha Ma, Meiyan Xiao, Guomin Yang, Willy Susilo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Functional signatures (FS) enable a master authority to delegate its signing privilege to an assistant. Concretely, the master authority uses its secret key sk(F) to issue a signing key sk(f) for a designated function f is an element of F-FS and sends both f and sk(f) to the assistant E, which is then able to compute a signature sigma(f) with respect to pk(F) for a message y in the range of f. In this paper, we modify the syntax of FS slightly to support the application scenario where a certificate of authorization is necessary. Compared with the original FS, our …

Investigating The Effects Of Dimension-Specific Sentiments On Product Sales: The Perspective Of Sentiment Preferences, Cuiqing Jiang, Jianfei Wang, Qian Tang, Xiaozhong Lyu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While literature has reached a consensus on the awareness effect of online word-of-mouth (eWOM), this paper studies its persuasive effect, specifically, the dimension-specific sentiment effects on product sales. We allow the sentiment information in eWOM along different product dimensions to have different persuasive effects on consumers’ purchase decisions. This occurs because of consumers’ sentiment preference, which is defined as the relative importance consumers place on various dimension-specific sentiments. We use an aspect-level sentiment analysis to derive the dimension-specific sentiments and PVAR (panel vector auto-regression) models to estimate their effects on product sales using a movie panel dataset. The findings show …

Transforming Businesses With E-Commerce Intelligence, Yuanto Kusnadi, Gary Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

2020 had been an extraordinary year as the Covid-19 pandemic struck almost all countries in the world and created an extraordinary impact on businesses worldwide. Singapore and many other Southeast Asian countries were not spared and had to implement lockdowns swiftly. To cope with physical store closures and the increased volume of online transactions, most businesses tried to revamp their business models and set up online stores to capitalise on the rise of the e-commerce wave. With the growing trend of online transactions, it has become imperative for companies operating in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry to track …

Inter-Retailer Channel Competition: Empirical Analyses Of Store Entry Effects On Online Purchases, Qian Tang, Mei Lin, Youngsoo Kim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This study empirically examines the effect of offline store entry on a competing online retailer in the footwear industry and investigates how this effect depends on the relative product assortment and price between the offline store and the online retailer. Using transaction data from a large online footwear retailer and offline store entry data from 19 major shoe retail chains and 3 department store chains, we quantify the entry effect of offline stores. Categorizing offline stores by assortment and price, we find that the entry of regular-price narrow-assortment stores generates a complementary effect that increases online purchases, while the entry …

Effect Of Augmented Reality On Consumer Behavior In E-Commerce, Chibuke Uzoechina, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

AR technology has been referred to as the future of e-commerce. In this paper, we propose to investigate the effect of AR on consumer behavior in e-commerce. Based on the theory of telepresence, we generated a set of hypotheses on their relationships. An experimental study is proposed to test the hypotheses. Our findings will be of interest to e-commerce companies that are looking at incorporating AR into their e-commerce platforms.

Can We Classify Cashless Payment Solution Implementations At The Country Level?, Dennis Ng, Robert J. Kauffman, Paul Robert Griffin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research commentary proposes a 3-D implementation classification framework to assist service providers and business leaders in understanding the kinds of contexts in which more or less successful cashless payment solutions are observed at point-of-sale (PoS) settings. Three constructs characterize the framework: the digitalization of the local implementation environment; the relative novelty of a given payment technology solution in a country at a specific point in time; and the development status of the country’s national infrastructure. The framework is motivated by a need to support cross-country research in this domain. We analyze eight country mini-cases based on an eight-facet (2 …

Explainable Recommendation With Comparative Constraints On Product Aspects, Trung-Hoang Le, Hady W. Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

To aid users in choice-making, explainable recommendation models seek to provide not only accurate recommendations but also accompanying explanations that help to make sense of those recommendations. Most of the previous approaches rely on evaluative explanations, assessing the quality of an individual item along some aspects of interest to the user. In this work, we are interested in comparative explanations, the less studied problem of assessing a recommended item in comparison to another reference item.

In particular, we propose to anchor reference items on the previously adopted items in a user's history. Not only do we aim at providing comparative …

Revman: Revenue-Aware Multi-Task Online Insurance Recommendation, Yu Li, Yi Zhang, Lu Gan, Gengwei Hong, Zimu Zhou, Qiang Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Online insurance is a new type of e-commerce with exponential growth. An effective recommendation model that maximizes the total revenue of insurance products listed in multiple customized sales scenarios is crucial for the success of online insurance business. Prior recommendation models are ineffective because they fail to characterize the complex relatedness of insurance products in multiple sales scenarios and maximize the overall conversion rate rather than the total revenue. Even worse, it is impractical to collect training data online for total revenue maximization due to the business logic of online insurance. We propose RevMan, a Revenue-aware Multi-task Network for online …

Measurement Study Of Energy Impact On Blockchain Technologies: Cryptocurrency Mining, Qaylin Holliman

Cybersecurity: Deep Learning Driven Cybersecurity Research in a Multidisciplinary Environment

Blockchain technology facilitates the flow of information and the speed of information through a faster and more decentralized network. It has its advantages as compared to more centralized networks and legacy networks. With the evolution of mainstream technology, blockchains is predicted to be more effective and sufficient to consumers and commercial companies. In this paper, blockchains will be scaled to cryptocurrency mining, where cryptocurrencies utilize blockchain technology to record transactions and orders. Mining will also be examined through energy consumption, the algorithms behind some cryptocurrencies, their sustainability issue, and resolutions to combat high energy consumption. While the pace of energy …

A Monte-Carlo Analysis Of Monetary Impact Of Mega Data Breaches, Mustafa Canan, Omer Ilker Poyraz, Anthony Akil

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The monetary impact of mega data breaches has been a significant concern for enterprises. The study of data breach risk assessment is a necessity for organizations to have effective cybersecurity risk management. Due to the lack of available data, it is not easy to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the interactions among factors that affect the cost of mega data breaches. The Monte Carlo analysis results were used to explicate the interactions among independent variables and emerging patterns in the variation of the total data breach cost. The findings of this study are as follows: The total data breach cost …

Three Stages Of Consumers’ Multi-Stage Dichotomic Switching Process: Pre-Switch, Switch, And Post-Switch, Jussi Nykanen, Virpi K. Tuunainen, Tuure Tuunanen, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research examines why and how consumers switch their mobile phones. We propose a framework that is grounded on decision-making and motivational theories and draws on the findings from a multinational qualitative survey on consumers’ mobile phone switching process. We show that consumers’ pre-switching decisions are affected by push and pull factors, their mobile phone selections are based on utilitarian or hedonic values, and their justifications for switching are based on cognition or affect. Furthermore, we identify two archetypical routes (i.e., cognitive and affective routes) and three conjoint routes that explain the dichotomic switching processes in pre-switch, switch, and post-switch …

Sustainability Of Rewards-Based Crowdfunding: A Quasi-Experimental Analysis Of Funding Targets And Backer Satisfaction, Michael Wessel, Rob Gleasure, Robert John Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Rewards-based crowdfunding presents an information asymmetry for participants due to the funding mechanism used. Campaign-backers trust creators to complete projects and deliver rewards as outlined prior to the fundraising process, but creators may discover better opportunities as they progress with a project. Despite this, the all-or-nothing (AON) mechanism on crowdfunding platforms incentivizes creators to set meager funding-targets that are easier to achieve but may offer limited slack when creators wish to simultaneously pursue emerging opportunities later in the project. We explore the related issues of how funding targets seem to be selected by the creators, and how dissatisfaction with the …

Creators And Backers In Rewards-Based Crowdfunding: Will Incentive Misalignment Affect Kickstarter's Sustainability?, Michael Wessel, Rob Gleasure, Robert John Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Incentive misalignment in rewards-based crowd-funding occurs because creators may benefit disproportionately from fundraising, while backers may benefit disproportionately from the quality of project deliverables. The resulting principal-agent relationship means backers rely on campaign information to identify signs of moral hazard, adverse selection, and risk attitude asymmetry. We analyze campaign information related to fundraising, and compare how different information affects eventual backer satisfaction, based on an extensive dataset from Kickstarter. The data analysis uses a multi-model comparison to reveal similarities and contrasts in the estimated drivers of dependent variables that capture different outcomes in Kickstarter’s funding campaigns, using a linear probability …

Do Blockchain And Iot Architecture Create Informedness To Support Provenance Tracking In The Product Lifecycle?, Somnath Mazumdar, Thomas Jensen, Raghava Rao Mukkamala, Robert John Kauffman, Jan Damsgaard

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Consumers often lack information about the origin and provenance of the products they buy. They may ask: Is a food product truly organic? Or, what is the origin of the gemstone in the ring I purchased? They also may have sustainability concerns about the footprint of a product at the end of its life. Producers and sellers, meanwhile, wish to know how longitudinal tracking of the provenance of products and their components can boost their sales prices and after-market value, and re- veal new business opportunities. We focus on how the product lifecycle (PLC) can be leveraged to track information …

Smart Contracts: Will Fintech Be The Catalyst For The Next Global Financial Crisis?, Randall Duran, Paul Griffin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the risks associated with smart contracts, a disruptive financial technology (FinTech) innovation, and assesses how in the future they could threaten the integrity of the global financial system. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach is used to identify risk factors related to the use of new financial innovations, by examining how over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives contributed to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) which occurred during 2007 and 2008. Based on this analysis, the potential for similar concerns with smart contracts are evaluated, drawing on the failure of The DAO on the Ethereum blockchain, which involved the loss …

Mobile Commerce, Crowd Commerce, And Stage Models: Reviewing And Expanding On Tp Liang’S Research, Sihua Chen, Mikko Siponen, Wael Soliman, Cao Xin, Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we review a few key themes of Ting-Peng (TP) Liang’s research. We first discuss some of his major contributions to information systems (IS) in the areas of electronic commerce, mobile commerce, and crowd commerce. Future research directions for these three themes are also discussed in the paper. TP Liang is also an early proponent of stage models although this stream of research has yet to receive the importance it deserves in the IS community. Previous seminal theoretical accounts in IS have generally separated variance and process models, the latter is useful in modeling changes in the explanatory …