Location

Velodromo - N17

Start Date

12-16-2013

Description

This research investigates early mover advantage of a special group of online firms: entrepreneurial etailers that operate on third party eCommerce platforms. The conventional wisdom suggests that early mover advantage would not be substantial when barrier to entry is low. However, this research argues that etailers, even when barrier to entry is low online, can enjoy early mover advantage because of the relatively high switching cost in the uncertain online environment, and the system design features of ecommerce platforms. Customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities, as measured by customer attraction, conversion and retention capabilities, can help enhance the sources of online early mover advantage. Panel data of 7,309 etailers from the cosmetics and women’s clothing industries is analyzed to verify the hypotheses. The empirical evidences strongly corroborate the predicted early mover advantage for online retailers and the role of CRM capabilities in boosting early mover advantage as well as etailer performance.

Share

COinS
 
Dec 16th, 12:00 AM

Early Mover Advantage in an Industry with Low Entry Barrier: Evidence from Etailers on Third Party ECommerce Platforms

Velodromo - N17

This research investigates early mover advantage of a special group of online firms: entrepreneurial etailers that operate on third party eCommerce platforms. The conventional wisdom suggests that early mover advantage would not be substantial when barrier to entry is low. However, this research argues that etailers, even when barrier to entry is low online, can enjoy early mover advantage because of the relatively high switching cost in the uncertain online environment, and the system design features of ecommerce platforms. Customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities, as measured by customer attraction, conversion and retention capabilities, can help enhance the sources of online early mover advantage. Panel data of 7,309 etailers from the cosmetics and women’s clothing industries is analyzed to verify the hypotheses. The empirical evidences strongly corroborate the predicted early mover advantage for online retailers and the role of CRM capabilities in boosting early mover advantage as well as etailer performance.