e-Commerce Sustainability: The Case of Pinduoduo in China

Abstract

Internet-based platforms are competing fiercely in the Chinese market by fostering an omni-channel shopping ecosystem. Companies have grouped under two giants, Alibaba and Tencent, leading to one-to-many competition dynamics in the Chinese market. In the midst of this competition, the three-year-old Pinduoduo has gained attention with its fast growth, positioning itself as the third biggest e-commerce platform in China with 19.4% of the market share. Pinduoduo has targeted a niche market made up of cheap products, low-income workers, and small business owners in small cities. Recently, however, many Pinduoduo users have returned to their former platforms, due to the proliferation of fake and low-quality products on the platform. Our study aims to investigate the reasons that prompted users to return to other platforms after their Pinduoduo experience. We conducted in-depth interviews to understand this phenomenon and built a research model based on risk theory and the customer resistance to change (CRC) framework. Results suggest that switching costs and relative attractiveness influence CRC, while risk perceptions form negative attitudes toward CRC, which finally result in negative word of mouth. Finally, theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Sustainable Development of Online Group-Buying Websites: An Integrated Perspective of ECM and Relationship Marketing

“…This may be because when GBWs attract new users and promote mobile apps, activities such as obtaining free goods by bargaining with the help of friends and relatives may cause disturbance to consumers, especially when it is difficult to realize benefits. The research of Chang et al [16] provides evidence for our assumption. Through an in-depth interview, they found that consumers were harassed by various OGB requests and advertisements from friends and family members of Ping duo duo (a GBW, the thirdlargest e-commerce platform in China).…”

“…Therefore, Che, Peng, Lim, and Hua [15] examined the effect of personalization specificity on GBW revisit intention. Chang, Wong, Libaque-Saenz, and Lee [16] proved that if the GBWs provide more benefits than the traditional e-commerce websites, it can be regarded as a comparative advantage, which will increase the switching cost and make consumers resist change. Wang et al [4] combined CTT (commitment trust theory) with ESM, and explored the antecedents of relationship commitment, trust, and their effects on OGB stickiness intention.…”

“…In traditional relationship marketing, enterprises create value for consumers to cultivate a long-term emotional connection with them, shape consumer loyalty, and achieve sustainable development. Although previous literature has employed the ECM framework [12][13][14] and the concept of relationship marketing [4,15,16] to explain continuous intention or stickiness intention in the OGB context, there are no studies that integrate them to explore this topic. Therefore, to fill this gap, we provide an extended version of ECM to explore how consumers' perceived values affect the sustainable development of GBWs.…”

Consumers’ Resistance to Digital Innovations: A Systematic Review and Framework Development

“…Matsuo et al, 2018) and non-parametric, partial least square (PLS) (e.g. Chang et al, 2019; Nel and Boshoff, 2019) forms. Thus, most of the empirical studies have utilised common but popular methods of analysis.…”

“…Some other studies have investigated resistance to change as a consequence (e.g. Chang et al, 2019; Zhou, 2014). In comparison, most studies measured resistance as a whole (Oh et al, 2019; Pal et al, 2019).…”