E-Commerce Commons^™

Platform Pricing With Endogenous Network Effects, Mei Lin, Ruhai Wu, Wen Zhou

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper examines a monopoly platform’s two-sided pricing strategy through modeling the trades between the participating sellers and buyers. In this approach, the network effects emerge endogenously through the equilibrium trading strategies of the two sides. We show that platform pricing depends crucially on the characteristics associated with market liquidity, including both sides’ entry costs, the buyers’ preferences, and the distribution of the sellers’ quality. The platform may subsidize sellers if the market is sufficiently liquid, whereas buyer subsidy can be optimal given an illiquid market. We also illustrate the impact of the sellers’ quality heterogeneity on the platform’s optimal …

Exploring The Relationship Between Online Search And Offline Sales For Better "Nowcasting", Sandeep R. Chandukala, Jeffrey P. Dotson, Qing Liu, Stephan Conrady

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although the conditions that motivate individuals to buy, sell, search, and post on the Internet are diverse, the information generated as a byproduct of these activities has the potential to help marketers develop a better understanding of consumer and firm behavior. In this paper, we utilize online product search data to build a model that links sales to marketing mix activity. The objectives of this research are threefold: first, to incorporate secondary data collected from online sources into a model of demand, thus improving our ability to forecast sales; second, to develop a better understanding of the role of marketing …

Creativity And Web Design: Designing And Producing A Successful Site On Creativity And Leadership, Travis N. Turner

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project explores the connection between design, website development and creativity. As the Internet plays an increasing role in every day life, the ability to produce a high-quality website showcasing one’s personal and professional writing becomes essential to personal and career success. This project features a literature review as well as an analysis of successful website to determine what makes for a good site. The project then implements these findings with a complete re-design of www.creativeleader.com as well adding and improving the content already on the site.

The Learning Curves In Open-Source Software (Oss) Development Network, Youngsoo Kim, Lingxiao Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We examine the learning curves of individual software developers in Open-Source Software (OSS) Development. We collected the dataset of multi-year code change histories from the repositories for five open source software projects involving more than 100 developers. We build and estimate regression models to assess individual developers' learning progress (in reducing the likelihood they may make a bug). Our estimation results show that developer's coding experience does not decrease bug ratios while cumulative bug-fixing experience leads to learning progress. The results may have implications and provoke future research on project management about allocating resources on tasks that add new code …

Future Of Payment Platforms, Salim Benjamin Youssefzadeh

Master's Theses

With the vast increase in smartphones, there have been an increasing number of opportunities growing in the app industry. One in particular is the way we deal with money. There are huge overheads in the current payment systems around the world particularly in the United States, many of which include large transaction fees. Many new businesses have grown to solve these inefficiencies and create a new platform that provides a new user experience, security, and convenience among many other things. However, many of these platforms are still centralized, making them more susceptible to attacks. This thesis goes over the various …

The Effects Of Social Media & Web Development On Product Promotion & The Effects Of Branding On Sales And Building A Startup, Scott Toshiro Burns, Galen Quan Tran

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study was to identify the key components needed to make a startup. This included created making a landing page and also driving traffic to the page through Facebook. On the landing page section, there was a test to see what would provide the best user experience using Squarespace. This entailed looking into different layouts and using analytics to determine how effective the landing page was in converting customers. In terms of Facebook research, went into looking into creating a method into driving leads into the prospect pipeline. A campaign was run to gather all the data …

Technology Investment Decision-Making Under Uncertainty In Mobile Payment Systems, Robert J. Kauffman, Jun Liu, Dan Ma

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Innovations in the mobile payments industry provide potentially profitable investment opportunities for banks. Nonetheless, significant uncertainties are associated with decision-making for this IT investment context, regarding future market conditions, technology standards, and consumer and merchant responses, especially their willingness to adopt. As a result, traditional capital budgeting approach and experienced intuition have not been effective. We develop a model to support a bank’s mobile payment systems adoption decision-making at the firm level when it faces endogenous technological risks and exogenous market conditions. This study applies theory and modeling from financial economics for decision-making under uncertainty to investments in m-payment systems …

Designing An E-Commerce Website For Summit Outdoor Supply (S.O.S.), Eliott Kentaro Mason

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study was to design an appealing and easy to use e-commerce website for a startup company called Summit Outdoor Supply (S.O.S.) in order for them to expand their customer base and continue to grow. This new website will provide customers with a convenient online store to order S.O.S.’s unique survival gear products at the click of a button.

This study investigated the requirements to design a successful e-commerce website along with increasing visibility of the company through search engine optimization techniques. A usability testing questionnaire was sent out to students, faculty, and personal friends through e-mail …

Integrating Advertising And News About The Brand In The Online Environment: Are All Products The Same?, Anca C. Micu, Iryna Pentina

WCBT Faculty Publications

This research compares the effects of paid advertising (banner ad plus banner ad) and publicity (news article plus banner ad) on attitude toward the brand in the context of different product categorization approaches. The authors utilize both the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and the economics of information theory to test the mechanism through which different electronic communication modes impact consumers' attitude toward the brand for various product categories. Findings indicate that the product categorization based on the level of involvement (ELM) to be superior to the one distinguishing search from experience goods (economics of information). Including news about the brand …

Canaries In The Urban Data Mine: Analytics For Smarter City Life, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Technology-based sensors and data analytics have created unprecendented levels of informedness for consumers, corporations, the public and government agencies. The information they generated provides a basis for smarter cities and more sustainable urban living.

The Relationship Between Fashion Blogs And Intention To Purchase And Word Of Mouth Behavior, Cassidy L. Vineyard

Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Blogs are an influential social media platform and a powerful marketing tool (Hsu & Tsou, 2011). A corporate fashion blog is an online product community. Online product communities established by retailers enable customers to interact with the company as well as amongst themselves (Nambisan & Watt, 2011). Online communities are a social space wherein relationships and ties are formed among the members and a common set of values and norms are established and shared (Nambisan & Watt, 2011).

The objective of this study was threefold. First it explored what factors shape readers’ intention to browse products on blogs. Based on …

How Corporations Use Social Media: An Exploratory Study, Victor Khachatryan

Honors College Theses

This paper explores the role of social media in increasing a company’s brand equity and strengthening its customer relationships. The data collected consists of three case studies of major American companies, two interviews with Brazilian entrepreneurs, and a survey conducted to start-up companies in the New York City area. The paper then concludes that the use of social media by businesses, leads to a positive relationship with brand equity and improved customer relationships. Nevertheless, further research is required to see how other factors interact with brand equity and customer relationships to get a better understanding of social media and its …

Future-Focused Leadership: Three Mega-Trends Influencing Distance Learning, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Faculty and Staff Publications

While many continue to question the skyrocketing costs and value of a college education, future-focused leaders are recreating learning experiences by blending technology with the human experience. What does the future of distance learning look like, taste like and feel like? It can be difficult to predict the future of education as the world continues to evolve at an increasingly rapid pace; however, distance learning administrators can use a future-focused leadership approach, which includes examining megatrends, to plan for the future. Megatrends are global shifts that influence society, the economy and the environment. The purpose of this paper is to …

How Many Credit Card Frauds Must We Endure Before Security Improves?, Maritza Martinez

UCF Forum

Yes, it can happen to you…

Are Online Pharmacy Prices Really Lower In Mexico?, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Adam G. Walke

Departmental Papers (E & F)

Empirical research on international pharmaceutical prices has uncovered numerous interesting commonalities and differences across international markets. This study examines price differences for brand name medicines sold over the Internet in the United States and Mexico. Web sites in both countries advertise their services in English and price their products in dollars. Sample data for 50 topselling medicines are from October 2011 for equal dosages on a per unit basis, exclusive of shipping fees, handling charges, and taxes. For a few medicines, the savings available to consumers who purchase them from companies in Mexico are very large. For most medicines in …

Use Of Peripheral Route Triggers To Test Buying Habits On Social Curating Sites, Kellie K. Brown

Communication Studies

Ecommerce has become an increasingly visual activity as images of product fill websites, social media, and social curation sites. The Elaboration Likelihood Model has often been used to examine and explain online purchasing behavior; however, this previous research barely touches on the use of peripheral cues. In analyzing the effect of peripheral cues on buying habits when searching social curation sites, statistical results from a survey conducted using women aged 18 to 34 in the San Luis Obispo area showed that these cues made no difference on the activity of a user. Regardless of their awareness to the visual cues, …

Pricing Strategy For Cloud Computing Services, Jianhui Huang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The cloud computing services market exhibits unique characteristics such as instant accessibility, fluctuating demand and supply, and interruptible service provision. Various pricing mechanisms exist in current industry practice. None of these pricing mechanisms, however, is comprehensive enough to capture all these features in a way that allows the vendors to optimize resource allocation. This dissertation identifies key factors related to cloud computing pricing, and examines their interplays. This research uses multiple approaches, including a market survey, game theory modeling, simulation, lab experiments and econometric modeling, to analyze the pricing strategy of cloud services vendors. A field study of a representative …

Factors Affecting Mobile Banking Adoption In The United States, Michel N. Engwanda

2010-2016 Archived Posters

This quantitative correlational study was focused on how consumers’ perceptions affect their intention to use mobile banking in the United States. Among U.S. consumers with smartphones, Internet access, and a bank account; 68% used Internet, 33% used telephone-based banking, and only 21% engaged in some type of mobile banking activities in 2011. The web-based survey used in this study was derived from the technology acceptance model extended by the innovation diffusion theory. Data were collected by email from a random sample of 398 people in the United States. The structural equation modeling technique was used to analyze data. The results …

Smarter Intentions And Authentic Goals (2014 Edition), Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Faculty and Staff Publications

Intentions influence our actions and behaviors. If intentions are established with awareness, truth, and meaning, they help us experience a life filled with passion and personal fulfillment. Lack of understanding around our true intentions often causes frustration and confusion, which is one reason people oftentimes do not achieve their goals. Many goals are written; however, they are not established with honest intent.

It’s time to get brutally honest about your true intentions so you can achieve authentic goals. Intentions have the power to strengthen your Inner Leader and help you move forward in a meaningful way as long as they …

Did New York State Just Anoint Virtual Currencies By Proposing To Regulate Them, Or Will Regulation Spoil Them For Some?, Sarah Jane Hughes

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Essay previews issues raised by the general subject of regulating virtual currencies and the specific efforts of New York State’s Department of Financial Services’ proposed Virtual Currency Regulatory Framework (the BitLicense) in particular. It focuses on five topics in the proposal and their interplay with the current regulation of “money services” and “money transmission” in other states, using the Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of Washington approaches on a few common topics for comparison purposes. It also asks whether regulation of virtual currencies is likely to cause more widespread adoption of virtual currencies or to frustrate the proponents …

(Wp 2014-01) Is Bitcoin The 'Paris Hilton' Of The Currency World? Or Are The Early Investors Onto Something That Will Make Them Rich? [Updated Version], Abdur Chowdhury

Economics Working Papers

The bitcoin phenomenon, and the technological innovation that made it possible, is interesting - but for investors large and small, the more pertinent question is whether they should buy the digital currency or avoid it. We analyze a bitcoin investment from the standpoint of an investor with a diversified portfolio using both in-sample and out-of-sample settings. Within the in-sample setting, bitcoin does not yield added value to investors with utility function consistent with the mean-variance setting. On the other hand, they do offer diversification benefits to investors with negative exponential and power utility functions. However, these benefits are not preserved …

Digital Market Manipulation, Ryan Calo

Articles

In 1999, Jon Hanson and Douglas Kysar coined the term “market manipulation” to describe how companies exploit the cognitive limitations of consumers. For example, everything costs $9.99 because consumers see the price as closer to $9 than $10. Although widely cited by academics, the concept of market manipulation has had only a modest impact on consumer protection law.

This Article demonstrates that the concept of market manipulation is descriptively and theoretically incomplete, and updates the framework of the theory to account for the realities of a marketplace that is mediated by technology. Today’s companies fastidiously study consumers and, increasingly, personalize …

Speculative Tech: The Bitcoin Legal Quagmire & The Need For Legal Innovation, Paul H. Farmer Jr.

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

A Review Of Human Rights And Information Communication Technologies: Trends And Consequences Of Use, John Nirenberg

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

The Internet and communications technologies have enabled the democratization of information and global networking. These two factors have significantly empowered NGOs in championing human rights. Unfortunately, as we have seen over the last year, these same tools can and are being used to identify, inhibit, and destroy efforts by human rights activists. This review of Lannon & Halpin, (2013) (Eds.) Human rights and information communication technologies: Trends and consequences of use (Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference) shows that their book sheds light on the challenges ahead. In particular, the authors have identified eleven technology-related issues facing human rights organizations that …

Governing A Digital Business Ecosystem: Lessons From One.Motoring Portal, Gary Pan, See Liang Foo, Shongye Tan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

While the IT innovation topic has gathered significant research interests, the existing discourse on IT innovation is centered on internal organizational processes such as IT capability development and organizational learning rather than IT innovation networks as the primary means for achieving superior enterprise performance. This is an important topic because a networked perspective of IT-enabled innovation is a critical dimension for the dynamics of collaborative innovation in today’s networked economy. In particular, the development and implementation of a digital business ecosystem (DBE); a specific type of business ecosystem defined as an IT-enabled business network of entities with differing interests bound …

Running And Chasing: The Competition Between Paid Search Marketing And Search Engine Optimization, Kai Li, Mei Lin, Zhangxi Lin, Bo Xing

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As search engine is leading the revenue growth in online marketing field, the competition of search engine marketing between paid search marketing (PSM) by search engine providers (SEPs), and search engine optimization (SEO) provided by search engine optimization firms, is white-hot. While PSM is simply for advertisers to buy the top ranks in sponsored links, SEO tries to optimize advertisers' websites by free-riding search engine's organic searching results. This study aims to investigate this competition by analytical modeling regarding organic search quality. We focus on sustainability conditions of SEO firms, investment analysis of SEO firms, and profit analysis of SEP. …

An Integrated Marketing Communications Plan For The Great American Comedy Festival, Johnny Carson Theatre, Norfolk, Nebraska, Adnormal Strategies, Emily Schaefer, Tony Nelson, Dominique Brown, Kary Benson, Mickey Mcconkey, Katheryn Schuller, Amanda Gammel, Max Wesely

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Student Advertising Projects

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Client: The Great American Comedy Festival

Campaign Purpose: In the summer of 2014, members of the Great American Comedy Festival approached our team of 8 advertising and public relation students with a specific task. The proposed task was to help increase attendance as well as raise awareness for future Great American Comedy Festivals. Our team’s mission is to present innovative ideas that will help our client generate an increase in attendance and to also provide them with beneficial tactics for future festivals.

Research: For our campaign, we accumulated various data through both secondary and primary research. Our secondary …

Food Imports Under Foreign Exchange Constraints In The Cfa’S Franc Zone Of Sub-Saharan Africa (Ssa), Seydina Ousmane Sene

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

To respond to the high imported food prices in their domestic markets, net food importing countries in the Communauté Financière Africaine (CFA) zone^[1] are adjusting their import tariffs and homologate domestic prices of imported commodities such as rice, wheat, maize, and sugar. This research uses a multivariate specification of error correction model (VECM) of estimation to investigate the link between food imports, world price index of rice, wheat, maize and sugar, real effective exchange rates, domestic food production, GDP, and trade openness in the short and long run. The data are on each homogenous commodity from 1969 to 2012. …

How Do Consumers Use Social Shopping Websites? The Impact Of Social Endorsements, Pei Xu

Theses and Dissertations--Business Administration

Social endorsements are user-generated endorsements of products or services, such as “likes” and personal collections, in an online social platform. We examine the effect of prior social endorsements on subsequent users’ tendency to endorse or examine a product in a social shopping context, where a social platform connect consumers and enable a collaborative shopping experience. This research consists of two parts. In part I, we identify two ways prior social endorsements can affect subsequent user behavior: as a crowd endorsement, which is an aggregate number of endorsements a product receives for anyone who comes across the product, and as …

Safaricom: Innovative Telecom Solutions To Empower Kenyans, Laura Beauchesne, Nick Dorion, Nathaniel Griggs, Jeffrey S. Harrison

Robins Case Network

Safaricom is thriving by selling what many would consider a luxury product in an impoverished country. Africa is a vast market for telecommunications, and Kenya is the third largest mobile market. It is also one of the fastest growing economies in the region. This case contains a fascinating perspective on Kenya, and on the range of services Safaricom provides to its citizens. It also contains excellent detail on Safaricom’s business and philanthropic strategies.