Marketing Seminar（2016-04）

Title:Platform Service Offering to Business Customers: Strategic Considerations in Engendering Seller Use of Marketing Tools

Speaker:Yang, Botao,University of Southern California

Time: Wednesday, 1 june. 13:30-15:00

Location:Room217, Guanghua Building 2

Abstract:

Many e-commerce platforms provide marketing tools to help their sellers attract customers and enhance user experience. However, there is virtually no theoretical framework or systematic evidence that provides insights to platforms on how their business customers use these marketing tools. In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework and apply it to an empirical setting to understand how business customers choose between two service offerings provided by an e-commerce platform. In particular, we model two types of firm considerations in choosing marketing tools: competitor actions and consumer reactions. Our estimation results show that, in making decisions on which marketing tool(s) to use, sellers do consider consumers’ responses to these tools, and they tend to differentiate themselves from the competition. Moreover, sellers with good customers want to retain their existing customer base, and those with low-potential customers are eager to seek new customers. We also find that strategic ability is positively correlated with seller rating. Our counterfactual simulations address three important issues to help an e-commerce platform better manage its service offerings to business customers.

Introduction:

Botao Yang is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern California. He focuses on advancing our understanding of the decisions of consumers and firms on the adoption and usage of technology products and services. In order to evaluate marketing strategies, he utilizes structural empirical modeling, and has developed micro-level structural models to examine the choices of consumers and firms. His current research examines how strategic thinking affects sellers’ adoption of web promotion tools; the product strategies of firms that are secondary entrants into a market where consumers are uncertain about the newcomers’ product quality; and consumer dyads’ joint usage decisions on wireless phone service consumption. He has published in theJournal of Marketing ResearchandManagement Science. He is a winner of the 2008 MSI Alden G. Clayton Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Competition.

Your participation is warmly welcomed!