IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/2054.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Product Variety, Across-Market Demand Heterogeneity, and the Value of Online Retail

Author

Listed:

Abstract

Online retail gives consumers access to an astonishing variety of products. However, the additional value created by this variety depends on the extent to which local retailers already satisfy local demand. To quantify the gains and account for local demand, we use detailed data from an online retailer and propose methodology to address a common issue in such data - sparsity of local sales due to sampling and a significant number of local zeros. Our estimates indicate products face substantial demand heterogeneity across markets; as a result, we find gains from online variety that are 30% lower than previous studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas W. Quan & Kevin R. Williams, 2016. "Product Variety, Across-Market Demand Heterogeneity, and the Value of Online Retail," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2054, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2054
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d20/d2054.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik Brynjolfsson & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Michael D. Smith, 2003. "Consumer Surplus in the Digital Economy: Estimating the Value of Increased Product Variety at Online Booksellers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1580-1596, November.
    2. Daniel A. Ackerberg & Marc Rysman, 2005. "Unobserved Product Differentiation in Discrete-Choice Models: Estimating Price Elasticities and Welfare Effects," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(4), pages 771-788, Winter.
    3. Steven Berry & Amit Gandhi & Philip Haile, 2013. "Connected Substitutes and Invertibility of Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(5), pages 2087-2111, September.
    4. Waldfogel, Joel, 2003. "Preference Externalities: An Empirical Study of Who Benefits Whom in Differentiated-Product Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(3), pages 557-568, Autumn.
    5. Amil Petrin, 2002. "Quantifying the Benefits of New Products: The Case of the Minivan," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 705-729, August.
    6. Bart J. Bronnenberg & Sanjay K. Dhar & Jean-Pierre H. Dubé, 2009. "Brand History, Geography, and the Persistence of Brand Shares," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(1), pages 87-115, February.
    7. Bart J. Bronnenberg & Jean-Pierre H. Dube & Matthew Gentzkow, 2012. "The Evolution of Brand Preferences: Evidence from Consumer Migration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2472-2508, October.
    8. Amit Gandhi Gandhi & Zhentong Lu & Xiaoxia Shi, 2013. "Estimating demand for differentiated products with error in market shares," CeMMAP working papers 03/13, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    9. Costas Arkolakis & Svetlana Demidova & Peter J. Klenow & Andres Rodriguez-Clare, 2008. "Endogenous Variety and the Gains from Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 444-450, May.
    10. Cardell, N. Scott, 1997. "Variance Components Structures for the Extreme-Value and Logistic Distributions with Application to Models of Heterogeneity," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 185-213, April.
    11. Steve Berry & Oliver B. Linton & Ariel Pakes, 2004. "Limit Theorems for Estimating the Parameters of Differentiated Product Demand Systems," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(3), pages 613-654.
    12. Romer, Paul, 1994. "New goods, old theory, and the welfare costs of trade restrictions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 5-38, February.
    13. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    14. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    15. Luis Aguiar & Joel Waldfogel, 2018. "Quality Predictability and the Welfare Benefits from New Products: Evidence from the Digitization of Recorded Music," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 492-524.
    16. Mark J Roberts & Daniel Yi Xu & Xiaoyan Fan & Shengxing Zhang, 2018. "The Role of Firm Factors in Demand, Cost, and Export Market Selection for Chinese Footwear Producers," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(4), pages 2429-2461.
    17. Kelvin J. Lancaster, 1966. "A New Approach to Consumer Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(2), pages 132-132.
    18. Fiona Scott Morton & Florian Zettelmeyer & Jorge Silva-Risso, 2001. "Internet Car Retailing," NBER Chapters, in: E-commerce, pages 501-519, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Jeffrey R. Brown & Austan Goolsbee, 2002. "Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive? Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 481-507, June.
    20. repec:bla:jindec:v:49:y:2001:i:4:p:501-19 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Erik Brynjolfsson & Michael D. Smith, 2000. "Frictionless Commerce? A Comparison of Internet and Conventional Retailers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 563-585, April.
    22. Christopher T. Conlon & Julie Holland Mortimer, 2013. "Demand Estimation under Incomplete Product Availability," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 1-30, November.
    23. Minjae Song, 2007. "Measuring consumerwelfareinthe CPU market: anapplication of the pure-characteristics demand model," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 429-446, June.
    24. Daniel Yi Xu & Mark Roberts, 2012. "A Structural Model of Dmand, Cost, and Export Market Selection for Chinese Footwear Producers," 2012 Meeting Papers 294, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    25. Steven T. Berry, 1994. "Estimating Discrete-Choice Models of Product Differentiation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 242-262, Summer.
    26. Austan Goolsbee & Amil Petrin, 2004. "The Consumer Gains from Direct Broadcast Satellites and the Competition with Cable TV," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(2), pages 351-381, March.
    27. Fiona Scott Morton & Florian Zettelmeyer & Jorge Silva‐Risso, 2001. "Internet Car Retailing," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(4), pages 501-519, December.
    28. Krugman, Paul R., 1979. "Increasing returns, monopolistic competition, and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 469-479, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alberto Cavallo, 2017. "Are Online and Offline Prices Similar? Evidence from Large Multi-channel Retailers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(1), pages 283-303, January.
    2. Javier Donna & Andre Trindade & Pedro Pereira & Tiago Pires, 2018. "Measuring the Welfare of Intermediation in Vertical Markets," 2018 Meeting Papers 984, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Liran Einav & Chiara Farronato & Jonathan Levin, 2016. "Peer-to-Peer Markets," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 615-635, October.
    4. Olivier De Groote & Frank Verboven, 2019. "Subsidies and Time Discounting in New Technology Adoption: Evidence from Solar Photovoltaic Systems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2137-2172, June.
    5. Luis Aguiar & Joel Waldfogel, 2018. "Quality Predictability and the Welfare Benefits from New Products: Evidence from the Digitization of Recorded Music," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 492-524.
    6. Matthew Grennan & Robert J. Town, 2020. "Regulating Innovation with Uncertain Quality: Information, Risk, and Access in Medical Devices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(1), pages 120-161, January.
    7. Argentesi, Elena & Buccirossi, Paolo & Cervone, Roberto & Duso, Tomaso & Marrazzo, Alessia, 2021. "The effect of mergers on variety in grocery retailing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    8. Donna, Javier D. & Pereira, Pedro & Pires, Tiago & Trindade, Andre, 2018. "Measuring the Welfare of Intermediaries in Vertical Markets," MPRA Paper 90465, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Peter Cohen & Robert Hahn & Jonathan Hall & Steven Levitt & Robert Metcalfe, 2016. "Using Big Data to Estimate Consumer Surplus: The Case of Uber," NBER Working Papers 22627, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Bonnet, Céline & Etcheverry, Clara, 2021. "The Impact of Online Grocery Shopping on Retail Competition and Profit Sharing: an Empirical Evidence of the French Soft Drink Market," TSE Working Papers 21-1225, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Jan 2022.
    11. Jean-François Houde & Peter Newberry & Katja Seim, 2017. "Nexus Tax Laws and Economies of Density in E-Commerce: A Study of Amazon’s Fulfillment Center Network," NBER Working Papers 23361, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Dingel, Jonathan & Tintelnot, Felix, 2020. "Spatial Economics for Granular Settings," CEPR Discussion Papers 14819, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Alexander Tarasov & Robertas Zubrickas, 2021. "Optimal Income Taxation under Monopolistic Competition," CESifo Working Paper Series 9309, CESifo.
    14. Javier D. Donna & Pedro Pereira & Tiago Pires & André Trindade, 2022. "Measuring the Welfare of Intermediaries," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8083-8115, November.
    15. Dronyk-Trosper Trey & Stitzel Brandli, 2020. "Analyzing the Effect of Mandatory Water Restrictions on Water Usage," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 1-13, April.
    16. Sharif Moghaddasi , Alireza & Mousavi Jahromi , Yeganeh, 2017. "Short-run and Long-run Effects of Financial Intermediation on Economic Growth," Journal of Money and Economy, Monetary and Banking Research Institute, Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, vol. 12(1), pages 89-105, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas W. Quan & Kevin R. Williams, 2017. "Product Variety, Across-Market Demand Heterogeneity, and the Value of Online Retail," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2054R3, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jun 2018.
    2. Javier Donna & Andre Trindade & Pedro Pereira & Tiago Pires, 2018. "Measuring the Welfare of Intermediation in Vertical Markets," 2018 Meeting Papers 984, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Donna, Javier D. & Pereira, Pedro & Pires, Tiago & Trindade, Andre, 2018. "Measuring the Welfare of Intermediaries in Vertical Markets," MPRA Paper 90465, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Mogens Fosgerau & Julien Monardo & André de Palma, 2024. "The Inverse Product Differentiation Logit Model," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 329-370, November.
    5. Clerides, Sofronis, 2008. "Gains from trade in used goods: Evidence from automobiles," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 322-336, December.
    6. Javier D. Donna & Pedro Pereira & Tiago Pires & André Trindade, 2022. "Measuring the Welfare of Intermediaries," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8083-8115, November.
    7. Hyungsik Roger Moon & Matthew Shum & Martin Weidner, 2017. "Estimation of random coefficients logit demand models with interactive fixed effects," CeMMAP working papers 12/17, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    8. Anindya Ghose & Sang Pil Han, 2014. "Estimating Demand for Mobile Applications in the New Economy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1470-1488, June.
    9. Martin B. Hackmann, 2019. "Incentivizing Better Quality of Care: The Role of Medicaid and Competition in the Nursing Home Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1684-1716, May.
    10. Moon, Hyungsik Roger & Shum, Matthew & Weidner, Martin, 2018. "Estimation of random coefficients logit demand models with interactive fixed effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 206(2), pages 613-644.
    11. Reiss, Peter C. & Wolak, Frank A., 2003. "Structural Econometric Modeling: Rationales and Examples from Industrial Organization," Research Papers 1831, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    12. Mariuzzo, Franco & Walsh, Patrick Paul & Whelan, Ciara, 2010. "Coverage of retail stores and discrete choice models of demand: Estimating price elasticities and welfare effects," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 555-578, September.
    13. Sofronis Clerides, 2004. "Gains from Trade in Used Goods: Evidence from the Global Market for Automobiles," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 6-2004, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    14. Lee Branstetter & Chirantan Chatterjee & Matthew J. Higgins, 2016. "Regulation and welfare: evidence from paragraph IV generic entry in the pharmaceutical industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(4), pages 857-890, November.
    15. Minjae Song, 2015. "A Hybrid Discrete Choice Model Of Differentiated Product Demand With An Application To Personal Computers," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(1), pages 265-301, February.
    16. Philip G. Gayle & Ying Lin, 2022. "Market effects of new product introduction: Evidence from the brew‐at‐home coffee market," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 525-557, August.
    17. Voth, Hans-Joachim & Hersh, Jonathan, 2009. "Sweet Diversity: Colonial Goods and the Rise of European Living Standards after 1492," CEPR Discussion Papers 7386, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Anindya Ghose & Yuliang Yao, 2011. "Using Transaction Prices to Re-Examine Price Dispersion in Electronic Markets," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 269-288, June.
    19. Lu, Zhentong & Shi, Xiaoxia & Tao, Jing, 2023. "Semi-nonparametric estimation of random coefficients logit model for aggregate demand," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2245-2265.
    20. Hyungsik Roger Roger Moon & Matthew Shum & Martin Weidner, 2014. "Estimation of random coefficients logit demand models with interactive fixed effects," CeMMAP working papers 20/14, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Product Variety; Demand Estimation; Long Tail; Online Retail;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • L67 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Other Consumer Nondurables: Clothing, Textiles, Shoes, and Leather Goods; Household Goods; Sports Equipment
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:cwl:cwldpp:2054. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.html .

    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.