2004年国际工程管理会议论文格式-ReputationandSales.PDFVIP

- 46 - 978-1-4673-6513-0/15/$31.00 ?2015 IEEE Moderating Effect of Number of Competitors on the Relationship between Reputation and Sales XU Min，YE Qiang School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, P.R.China Abstract: Reputation mechanisms have become an essential component in online marketplaces, helping to enforce trust and reduce risk. They play an important role in buyers’ purchase decisions, therefore generating favorable economic performance. Many researchers explore the impact of reputation on price or sales, however the majority of them focus on the direct relationship between reputation and price. We in this paper will look at the impact of reputation on sales volume and consider whether the number of competitors will moderate their relationship. Using data of Canon digital cameras collected on T, the largest online platform in China, we build log-linear regression models to test our hypotheses. We find that seller’s reputation has significantly positive impact on sales. The number of competitors has negative effect on sales, and meanwhile will enhance the relationship between reputation and sales. Keywords: electronic markets, reputation, sales, number of competitors 1 Introduction In electronic markets, buyers will experience more transaction risks and information asymmetries are much severer due to faceless transactions between buyers and sellers. To mitigate such information asymmetry, online reputation mechanisms are built in online platforms. Reputation has become an essential component in online marketplaces, helping to build trust and avoid adverse selection. Comparing trading in a market with online reputation systems to a market without reputation systems, researchers find that the reputation mechanisms improve transaction efficiency and enforce trust [1]. The issue of reputation mechanisms has received considerable attention in recent years. In general, research