E-Commerce Commons^™

Is American Retail At A Historic Tipping Point?, Violetta Torres-Baron

Capstones

There’s a transformation happening in the American economy as consumers increasingly buy things online and e-commerce approaches 10% of all US retail sales with Amazon leading the way. Now, nearly everyone knows that Amazon is one of the hottest stocks on Wall Street right now given its impressive gains year after year. With its technological sophistication and ability to know it’s customers in ways never seen before, many retailers fear the “death by Amazon” as the company moves into different sectors and diversifies its product offerings – but is this is a bonafide fear for the retail sector? The big-box …

Did Hollywood Take Theatre "By Hook Or By Crook?", Catherine S. Wright

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Hollywood and Theatre have been partners in producing entertainment for over 100 years. The relationship was fruitful for both parties, but Hollywood moguls and playwrights battled over ownership of the work and crafting of its creative nucleus, story and character. Theatre was the dominant entertainment right before the rise of motion pictures. Once Hollywood’s talkies closed the curtain on silent films, playwrights had a high creative worth to movie makers. In the cinema, story and dialogue were essential for its survival and growth. Playwrights were courted by the Hollywood studio heads but were not offered equal partnership as they were …

Regulating China's Ecommerce: Harmonizations Of Laws, Pinghui Xiao

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Internet commercialization began in China in 1995. Since then, China has seen a digitalization movement, which has become a joint undertaking between industry and government in the age of ubiquitous Internet in China. China’s Premier Li Keqiang announced ‘Internet Plus’ as the national strategy in his Government Work Report presented during the Two Sessions of the year of 2015. Following Premier Li’s vision for the ‘Internet Plus’ Strategy, China is now determined “to integrate mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things with modern manufacturing, to encourage the healthy development of e-commerce, industrial networks, and Internet banking, …

A Look Into Electronic Word-Of-Mouth: The Willingness Of Consumers To Write Online Reviews, Michelle Le

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine the willingness of a consumer to write an online review in relation to their love for a brand, their attachment to a brand and their satisfaction with shopping online for that brand. There are limited empirical studies that investigate the impact of Brand Love, Brand Attachment, and Electronic Shopping Experience Satisfaction on online reviews. Brand Love is the extent of emotional attachment that a content consumer feels for a certain brand or trade name whereas Brand Attachment measures the degree or strength to which consumers connects themselves with a brand. Lastly, a …

Crude Oil Prices Forecasting: Time Series Vs. Svr Models, Xin James He

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

This research explores the weekly crude oil price data from U.S. Energy Information Administration over the time period 2009 - 2017 to test the forecasting accuracy by comparing time series models such as simple exponential smoothing (SES), moving average (MA), and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) against machine learning support vector regression (SVR) models. The main purpose of this research is to determine which model provides the best forecasting results for crude oil prices in light of the importance of crude oil price forecasting and its implications to the economy. While SVR is often considered the best forecasting model in …

Table Of Contents Jitim Vol 27 Issue 3, 2018

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Table of Contents

Cryptocurrency Fraud: A Look Into The Frontier Of Fraud, Stafford C. Baum

Honors College Theses

This research project was conducted to look into what sort of frauds can be committed to steal unsuspecting investors’ cryptocurrencies. The inspiration for this research came in the form of the fact that millions of dollars are lost to cryptocurrency fraud each day, and many of these frauds are successful due to the public’s naivete towards the dangers of investing in cryptocurrencies. After researching many different cryptocurrency fraud cases, the frauds could be categorized into four major categories. These categories include Ponzi schemes, fake initial coin offering schemes, pump and dump schemes as well as cryptocurrency theft.

An Investigation Of Web Atmospherics In Online Luxury Branding, Emilie E. Jones

Honors College Theses

Having an online presence for a retail store has transitioned from serving as simply a new avenue through which a profit can be made, to a tool that can be harnessed to express a brand’s personality. So how do luxury brands manage to maintain a high-end, exclusive status on the highly available landscape of the internet? The intention of this research is to identify whether luxury brands are currently taking advantage of differential web atmospherics cues, in a way that significantly sets them apart from non-luxury brand websites. To do this, we measured elements including screen space, reduction of elements, …

Double Learning Or Double Blinding: An Investigation Of Vendor Private Information Acquisition And Consumer Learning Via Online Reviews, Nan Hu, Kevin E. Dow, Alain Yee Loong Chong, Ling Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, building upon information acquisition theory and using portfolio methods and system equations, we made an empirical investigation into how online vendors and consumers are learning from each other, and how online reviews, prices, and sales interact among each other. First, this study shows that vendors acquire information from both private and public channels to learn the quality of their products to make price adjustment. Second, for the more popular products and newly released products, vendors are more motivated to acquire private information that is more precise than the average precision to adjust their price. Third, we document …

Heterogeneous Embedding Propagation For Large-Scale E-Commerce User Alignment, Vincent W. Zheng, Mo Sha, Yuchen Li, Hongxia Yang, Yuan Fang, Zhenjie Zhang, Kian-Lee Tan, Kevin Chen-Chuan Chang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We study the important problem of user alignment in e-commerce: to predict whether two online user identities that access an e-commerce site from different devices belong to one real-world person. As input, we have a set of user activity logs from Taobao and some labeled user identity linkages. User activity logs can be modeled using a heterogeneous interaction graph (HIG), and subsequently the user alignment task can be formulated as a semi-supervised HIG embedding problem. HIG embedding is challenging for two reasons: its heterogeneous nature and the presence of edge features. To address the challenges, we propose a novel Heterogeneous …

The Blockchain Explained, Or How To Make Lots Of Money In Cryptocurrency, Jason Tubinis

Presentations

The School of Law's Information Technology Librarian summarizes blockchain, the current impact is having on business, finance and e-commerce, and the potential implications for our not so distant future as it pertains to the law.

Factors Affecting Online Streaming Subscriptions, C. Christopher Lee, Pankaj Nagpal, Sinead G. Ruane, Hyoun Sook Lim

Communications of the IIMA

As digital media continues to expand, competition between cable television and online streaming services increases. Acquiring customers today takes more than just advertising; it requires tailoring business objectives to the needs and wants of consumers. Numerous studies have examined the connection between the adoption of cable and online media, and key variables such as cost, ease of use, and social trends. In this study, we explore a number of factors which consumers consider when choosing cable television and online streaming options. Sample data was collected through a survey questionnaire at a large public university. Multivariate regression models were developed to …

The Rise And Fall Of Bike-Sharing Platforms: A Lesson In E-Commerce, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

In the era of digital economy, bike-sharing platforms have grown rapidly. However, not all of them survived the competition. Why?

Minutes & Seconds: The Scientists, Patrick Aievoli

Zea E-Books Collection

Minutes & Seconds, is a captivating intelligible read for those who strive to understand where the “what if” moment has gone. Succeeding his other captivating books, Aievoli’s deep introspective lens dials his readers in to awaken the proverbial sleeping giant inside of our consciousness. He designs an insightful exciting romp through the surreal landscape of our society and illustrates how various pioneers have lead us to a crossroads. I’m truly impressed with Aievoli’s perspicacious comprehension of where digital has taken us through the hands of these select individuals. --Sequoyah Wharton

In creating Minutes & Seconds, Aievoli has assembled an interesting …

Reflective Practice Series: Selected Instructional Models Using Synchronous Video Conferencing Software, Martin W. Sivula

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

With the vast array of resources available to instructors, one would think that instruction and teaching would yield success for all learners. Now, well into the 21^st century has much changed in the classroom? Certainly, movable desks and chairs, advanced audio and visual equipment, and a plethora of all types of technologies which might be able to enhance training and education. Over the last several decades research on individualized instruction, cognitive science, educational psychology, and multimedia instruction (to name a few) have permeated the literature on instruction. With all the research and the vast array of studies on improving …

A Strategic Value Appropriation Path For Cloud Computing, Abhishek Kathuria, Arti Mann, Jiban Khuntia, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Cloud-based information management is one of the leading competitive differentiation strategies for firms. With the increasing criticality of information management in value creation and process support, establishing an integrated capability with cloud computing is vital for organizational success in the changing landscape of business competition. These issues have received scant attention, however. We draw on the resource-based view, dynamic capability hierarchy concepts, and the perspective of operand and operant resources to suggest a cloud value appropriation model for firms. We argue that, to appropriate business value from cloud computing, the firm needs to effectively deploy cloud computing and leverage cloud …

Information Seeking Behavior Of Research Scholars At Muet Library & Online Information Center, Jamshoro: A Study, Liaquat Ali Rahoo Mr, Muhammad Ali Khan Nagar, Maryam Kalhoro, Qurat-Ul-Ain Abro, Shadab Kalhoro

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The aim of this paper was to study the behavior of the information seeking by the researcher scholars of the at Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh Pakistan. The overall purpose of the research study was to find out the awareness and information requirements by the researcher for the research purposes which were provided by the Higher education commission digital library. The data was collected from 230 researchers with the help of questionnaire through the Google online form. Data was analyzed in SPSS software. Research findings were majority of researchers were use electronics resources, text books and reference …

Consumer Welfare And Price Discrimination: A Fine Line, Marie Wallmark, Eyal Greenberg, Dan Engels

SMU Data Science Review

Traditionally, it was not feasible for businesses to determine the maximum price the buyer was willing to pay, but with the availability of big data and the deployment of sophisticated algorithms, with a great degree of precision businesses can ascertain the maximum willingness price. Some forms of price discrimination are prohibited under the Robinson-Patman Act of Antitrust (1890), provided demographic characteristics such as race and gender are the determining factors. The problem with this interpretation is that sellers are not transparent about what factors are taken into consideration when determining price. Current laws are either limited in their interpretation or …

The Case For Showrooming, Cristina Nistor, Prashanth Nyer

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Showrooming has deeply affected the retail market in the past decade. As consumers became able to easily compare prices on their mobile devices, they started using retail stores to try on and experience products and then they ordered online the lower priced versions they liked best to be delivered directly to their homes. As retailers are trying to adapt to the showrooming challenges and the shift to online purchases, stores are increasingly adopting showrooming as a new selling format. We present examples of successful showrooming and develop a framework for when the new selling format can be expected to be …

Understanding Crude Oil Spot And Futures Prices Dynamics During Major Crises, Miroslava Zavadska

Doctoral

This thesis examines crude oil, the dominant energy resource worldwide, its historical behaviour and the resulting implications for world economies. It analyses the role of spot and futures oil prices and their dynamics during periods of market uncertainty. The focus of attention is the understanding of the lead-lag relationship of crude oil spot and futures prices during major crises periods (the first Gulf War in 1990/91, the Asian financial crisis in 1997/98, the US terrorist attack in 2001 and the global financial crisis in 2008/9), and its implications for investors and policy-makers. The mix of applied econometric models gives strength …

Modeling Contemporaneous Basket Sequences With Twin Networks For Next-Item Recommendation, Duc Trong Le, Hady W. Lauw, Yuan Fang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Our interactions with an application frequently leave a heterogeneous and contemporaneous trail of actions and adoptions (e.g., clicks, bookmarks, purchases). Given a sequence of a particular type (e.g., purchases)-- referred to as the target sequence, we seek to predict the next item expected to appear beyond this sequence. This task is known as next-item recommendation. We hypothesize two means for improvement. First, within each time step, a user may interact with multiple items (a basket), with potential latent associations among them. Second, predicting the next item in the target sequence may be helped by also learning from another supporting sequence …

Towards Easy Comparison Of Local Businesses Using Online Reviews, Yong Wang, Hammad Haleem, Conglei Shi, Yanhong Wu, Xun Zhao, Siwei Fu, Huamin Qu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the rapid development of e-commerce, there is an increasing number of online review websites, such as Yelp, to help customers make better purchase decisions. Viewing online reviews, including the rating score and text comments by other customers, and conducting a comparison between different businesses are the key to making an optimal decision. However, due to the massive amount of online reviews, the potential difference of user rating standards, and the significant variance of review time, length, details and quality, it is difficult for customers to achieve a quick and comprehensive comparison. In this paper, we present E-Comp, a carefully-designed …

A Proposal For A Decentralized Liquidity Savings Mechanism With Side Payments, Adam Fugal, Rodney Garratt, Zhiling Guo, Dave Hudson

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In most countries, the central bank provides the medium to physically settle the smallest payments (cash) and the means to electronically settle the largest payments, which typically are wholesale payments between banks. For the latter purpose the central bank usually operates a system through which banks can settle payments in central bank money. Historically, interbank payments were settled via (end of day) netting systems, but as volumes and values increased central banks became worried about the risks inherent in deferred net settlement systems, so most central banks opted for the implementation of a Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system. With …

An Investigation Of The Benefits And Barriers Of E‐Business Adoption Activities In Yemeni Smes, Ahmed Abdullah, Brychan Thomas, Lyndon Murphy, Eoin Plant

Articles

Yemeni small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are at the early stages of e‐business adoption and their owners and managers need to be supported to gain an understanding of the benefits that their business can achieve from adopting e‐business. Yemeni SMEs are at the early stages of e‐business adoption. The delay in adopting more advanced e‐business solutions are due to factors including the comparatively low level of technology usage within the organization, lack of qualified staff available to develop, implement and support firms’ websites, and limited financial resources. A lack of computer software and hardware resources appears to have a detrimental …

China’S Sharing Mobility Economy, Yifan Zhou

Master's Projects and Capstones

Evolution in the urban landscape is key for sustainable development in the world because people have progressively moved from rural areas to live in urban cities. The mobility and transport industry offer the greatest potential to reduce carbon emissions in cities. The arrival of application-based and intelligent-sharing systems into the shores of China has been disruptive to local and international businesses. These has led to a liberation of an automobile sharing economy at a much deeper and greater level: a rise in the use of electric vehicles (EVs), car-pooling, and the utilization of bike-sharing models. Integrating the pre-existing but under-utilized …

Bitcoin, Blockchain And Trust, Quentin Rene Marcel Rosso

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

In the past few months, there has been an incredible craze about Bitcoins and Blockchain. Prices skyrocketed, and trading platforms emerged very quickly. This new cryptocurrency economy has been compared to the more traditional economy which has been shaken by many crises in the past twenty years. Crises arise when trust collapses. With a mix of interpersonal and institutional trust, our financial system and its institutions are considered obsolete. We are repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Bitcoin will fix our current economy by providing three new elements of Trust: (1) Decentralized architecture and governance neutrality based on …

Zalora: Growing With E-Commerce, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Asia’s fastest-growing online fashion retailer recalibrates its mobile strategy

According to research by Forrester, one-fourth of global retail sales in 2022 will take place online, and it will be in Asia-Pacific. Of that, 80 percent of that will happen on mobile devices, reflecting a well-acknowledge trend of all things going mobile.

Blockchain: Is It The Future Of Business?, Stuart Welsch

Information Systems Undergraduate Honors Theses

Blockchain is one of these new and disruptive technologies being developed; it is predicted to change the landscape of business in an extremely similar fashion as the Internet did. In lay terms, blockchain is a new technology designed to secure privacy (Collins, 2016), cut out unnecessary middleman costs (Eha, 2017), dramatically lower the cost of transactions (Iansiti & Lakhani, 2009), lower transaction time (Underwood, 2016), and assist in making assets become more liquid and appealing (like cash) because they are more easily transferable (Paech, 2016). Blockchain functions like a ledger; it is able to keep track of an asset’s ownership …

Feasibility Of Warehouse Drone Adoption And Implementation, Edward Companik, Michael J. Gravier, M. Theodore Farris Ii

Marketing Department Faculty Journal Articles

While aerial delivery drones capture headlines, the pace of adoption of drones in warehouses has shown the greatest acceleration. Warehousing constitutes 30% of the cost of logistics in the US. The rise of e-commerce, greater customer service demands of retail stores, and a shortage of skilled labor have intensified competition for efficient warehouse operations. This takes place during an era of shortening technology life cycles. This paper integrates several theoretical perspectives on technology diffusion and adoption to propose a framework to inform supply chain decision-makers on when to invest in new robotics technology.

Acquisitions: Walmart Vs Amazon, Scott Sims

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

The retail industry is in the process of undergoing major change. Historically big box brick and mortar strategies have dominated, but this is changing in the age of impatience and instant gratification. As consumers want items more conveniently, online retail has taken hold with no semblance of anticipated decline. At the forefront of this transformation are two industry giants: Walmart and Amazon. Walmart finds itself on the side of brick and mortar with 11,718 physical retail locations worldwide. Amazon is dominating the online retail space with control of a staggering 44% of all US e-commerce sales in 2017. These equally …