Product fit uncertainty is cited as one of the top reasons for high online product return rates. Fit describes how well a product suits a consumer's needs. The value of a product drops sharply when it deviates from a customer's ideal fit. In this study, we focus on ordinal fit, a type of fit...

Apart from reducing buyer search costs, web-based commerce has also enabled the use ofintelligent agent technologies that reduce seller search costs by targeting buyers, customizing,and pricing products in real-time. Our model of an electronic market with customizable productsanalyzes the...

Using detailed social broadcasting data from an online charitable giving campaign on Twitter, we evaluate two competing models of economic incentives on online pro-social behavior. Specifically, we focus on the effectiveness of gratitude-embedded messages on online charitable giving behavior,...

This study examines the effects of reputation in the nascent but rapidly growing online labor markets. In these markets contract winners (vendors) provide clients with customized products such as computer software, business plans and artistic designs. The products are used primarily for business...

It has become widely accepted that information technology (IT) has had a profound influence on market transactions, with lower search costs for buyers often considered the key to lower prices and higher consumer welfare. However, sellers also use online channels to search for buyers whose...

This study examines how sellers respond to changes in the design of reputation systems on eBay. Specifically, we focus on one particular strategic behavior on eBay’s reputation system – the sellers’ explicit retaliation and subsequent revoking of negative feedback provided by buyers. We...