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AbstractThis paper examines the income distribution and welfare effects of online sales and home delivery by considering an emerging platform economy with urban and rural regions. With a given number of urban manufacturing firms, a rise in online sales, which boosts home delivery, can reduce the wage inequality between skilled and unskilled labor in the short run. The wage gap can be narrowed further in the long run with the exit of manufacturing firms. Moreover, firm exit can mitigate the excessive number of firms in the urban manufacturing sector, thus improving the welfare of the platform economy and increasing the optimal size of online sales in the long run.

We provide a novel intuition for the observation that many brand manufacturers have restricted their retailers' ability to resell brand products online. Our approach builds on models of salience according to which price disparities across distribution channels guide a consumer's attention toward prices and lower her appreciation for quality. Thus, absent vertical restraints, one out of two distortions – a quality or a participation distortion – can arise in equilibrium. The quality distortion occurs if the manufacturer provides either an inefficiently low quality under price salience or an inefficiently high quality in order to prevent price salience. The participation distortion arises as offline sales might be entirely abandoned in order to prevent prices from becoming salient. Both distortions are ruled out if vertical restraints are imposed. As opposed to the current EU legislation that considers a range of vertical restraints as being hardcore restrictions of competition, we show that these constraints can be socially desirable if salience effects are taken into account.

We provide a novel intuition for the observation that many brand manufacturers have restricted their retailers' ability to resell brand products online. Our approach builds on models of salience according to which price disparities across distribution channels guide a consumer's attention toward prices and lower her appreciation for quality. Thus, absent vertical restraints, one out of two distortions - a quality or a participation distortion - can arise in equilibrium. The quality distortion occurs if the manufacturer provides either an inefficiently low quality under price salience or an inefficiently high quality in order to prevent price salience. The participation distortion arises as offline sales might be entirely abandoned in order to prevent prices from becoming salient. Both distortions are ruled out if vertical restraints are imposed. As opposed to the current EU legislation that considers a range of vertical restraints as being hardcore restrictions of competition per se, we show that these constraints can be socially desirable if salience effects are taken into account.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate key differences between web‐only and multi‐channel retailers in terms of five different measures of web activity and three different forms of outsourcing behavior. Specifically, the research examines the marketing and logistics efficacy between business‐to‐consumer (B2C) retailers who sell exclusively via the web and retailers for whom the web offers one additional channel for sales. Finally, it is suggested that how this study may give rise to future research in this area.Design/methodology/approachThis empirical study using the lens of transaction cost economics (TCE) to examine hypotheses regarding customer buying behavior and the retailers' proclivity to outsource is conducted. Secondary data sources provide key metrics for the more than 250 companies found in the sample.FindingsSeveral key differences exist between the efficacy of web‐only and multi‐channel retailers, which can be explained with the TCE framework. Both web‐only and multi‐channel retailers are found to exhibit respective advantages. Multi‐channel retailers enjoy more web traffic and offer more items for the consumer, yet are disadvantaged in terms of ease of search and conversion rate (percentage of shoppers who actually buy). In addition, web‐only retailers are more likely to outsource the functions of logistics, marketing, and customer support.Practical implicationsThis study has value to researchers and practitioners in that it illustrates how two of the most common types of retailing alternatives differ from each other. Multi‐channel retailers are challenged with the broad scope and immense collection of goods they offer and, therefore, struggle to convert shoppers into buyers. Web‐only retailers, on the other hand, enjoy less web traffic, but prove more effective in conversion rates, perhaps related to their more extensive use of outsourced expertise in logistics, marketing, and customer support services.Originality/valueIn the decade since internet retailing (e‐tailing) began to be accepted as a new sales channel, e‐tailing has grown to a market size of over $160 billion within the USA alone. However, empirical examination of the functioning and performance of this sales channel is only now commencing.

With the development of artificial intelligence technology, virtual live streamers emerge in the field of live streaming e-commerce. Previous studies have identified how human live streamers affect online sales performance. However, little is known about the virtual live streamer. Can virtual live streamers play a role in e-commerce as well as their human counterparts? The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of virtual live streamers on online sales performance from the perspective of source credibility. The perceived credibility of virtual live streamers can modify viewer behavior in the virtual live streaming room. The relevant data is thus generated and recorded by the e-commerce platform. We collected data from 300 virtual live streaming rooms in the e-commerce platform known as Taobao.com. Using the behavior data, a multiple regression model was built to empirically study the relationship between the characteristics of virtual live streamers and online sales performance. The results showed that virtual live streamers' characteristics of trustworthiness, attractiveness, and expertise had a positive effect on online sales performance, whereas the characteristic of interactivity had an adverse effect. This study provides insight into the virtual live streamer. Virtual live streamers are still unable to interact with viewers in a human live streamer manner. Marketing managers should improve virtual live streamers to meet viewers' hedonic shopping motivations in the future.