IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/ijaimp/v21y2013i1p72-90.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Drivers of e‐retailer peak sales period price behavior: an empirical analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Punit Ahluwalia
  • Jerald Hughes
  • Vishal Midha

Abstract

Purpose - Electronic markets are known to be distinct from, and more efficient than, the conventional retail markets. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect on pricing in relation to proximity to a culturally and socially significant peak shopping day and the moderating effects of consumers product rating, product popularity, and featured product website rankings. Design/methodology/approach - The shopping season during the Thanksgiving holiday in 2010 was used to collect data for this study. This paper uses a case study approach by extracting real store‐level data from the web pages of a B2C e‐retailer. Store level data were downloaded for a total of 19 days, before and after “Black Friday.” The longitudinal data were analyzed using regression analytic procedure to conform the hypotheses. Findings - The longitudinal data supported the hypothesized relationship between days to the culturally significant shopping event and e‐retailer selling price. The data also confirmed that featured product ranking is a significant moderator of the above relationship. Research limitations/implications - In e‐retailer websites, webpage ranking determines the order of display of products. Literature suggests that buyers choices are influenced by the volume and order of display of information. Therefore, this study includes webpage rankings of featured products, number of consumer reviews, and consumer ratings as independent variables. Another limitation of this study is that it uses data of one large e‐retailer. Future studies may address these limitations. Originality/value - This paper examines the pricing behavior of e‐commerce companies during “culturally and socially significant” events. and answers research questions related to the electronic markets: Do e‐commerce companies participate in cultural and social events? How do these companies manipulate pricing during a special shopping season? How are search tools employed to showcase specific products to the buyers? Is there a relationship between proximity to “Black Friday” and product price, product popularity, and product ratings?

Suggested Citation

  • Punit Ahluwalia & Jerald Hughes & Vishal Midha, 2013. "Drivers of e‐retailer peak sales period price behavior: an empirical analysis," International Journal of Accounting & Information Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 21(1), pages 72-90, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:ijaimp:v:21:y:2013:i:1:p:72-90
    DOI: 10.1108/18347641311299759
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/18347641311299759/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/18347641311299759/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/18347641311299759?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:ijaimp:v:21:y:2013:i:1:p:72-90. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.