The growth of the Internet has spawned an increasing number of online information sources (OISs). The effect of OISs on consumer information search processes has been particularly striking in sectors such as auto retailing, where the typical consumer has conventionally confronted an unpleasant...

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...

The digitization of commerce has caused fundamental changes in consumer information search and use. With an increasing number of consumers using search engines as an integral component of their online purchase process, online sponsored search markets, such as those provided by Google and Yahoo!,...

This paper develops and analyzes a model of competition between platforms in an industry with indirect network effects, with a specific focus on complementary product exclusivity. The objective is to understand the conditions under which complement exclusivity can be observed and analyze the...

Firms use different attribution strategies such as last-click attribution or first-click attribution to assign conversion credits to search keywords that appear in their consumers’ paths to purchase. These attributed credits impact a firm’s future bidding and budget allocations among...

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...

Online sponsored search advertising has emerged as the dominant online advertising format largely due to their "pay-for-performance" nature, wherein advertising expenditures are closely tied to outcomes. While the pay-for-performance format substantially reduces the "wastage" incurred by...

This paper focuses on a novel mechanism for market segmentation and price discrimination based on consumers' use of online infomediaries. Using the auto-retailing context as the setting for our study we address the following question: Can online infomediaries serve as a viable mechanism for...

This paper analyzes the impact of e-commerce on markets where established firms face competition from Internet-based entrants with focused offerings. In particular, we study the retail brokerage sector where the growth of online brokerages and the availability of alternate sources of information...

Research on recommender systems mainly focuses on product recommendations where the recommendations are primarily based on buyers’ preferences. However, user recommendation in two-sided matching markets where potential matches’ preferences may also play a role in the focal user’s...