A significant body of literature in information systems, marketing, and economics has shown the important implication of the distinction between experience products and search products (“product typeâ€) on consumer information search, marketplace design, and firm strategy. However, how...

Online peer-to-peer communities and online social networks have become increasingly popular. In particular, the recent boost of online peer-to-peer communities leads to exponential growth in sharing of user-contributed content which have brought profound changes to business and economic...

It is well known that the Internet has significantly reduced consumers’ search costs online. But relatively little is known about how search costs affect consumer demand structure in online markets. In this paper, we identify the impact of search costs on firm competition and market structure...