Human Services or Non-Human Services? How Online Retailers Make Service Decisions

Zhao, Leilei; Wu, Weiwei; Jiang, Minghui

doi:10.3390/jtaer17040090

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Unlike previous studies, we make a theoretical contribution to this field by considering scenarios of consumer order consolidation and additional purchases under different policies. (2) We incorporate consumer shopping behaviors into this study and we develop a competition model under MFS, through which we explore the impacts of discount policies on consumers' shopping behaviors. Our paper enriches the topic by incorporating the sensitivity of consumers into price discounts and providing analytical models to derive the optimal discount percentage and optimal discount duration.…”

Section: Contributions and Paper Arrangementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Global e-commerce retail sales have grown rapidly in recent years [1,2], increasing from USD 2382 billion in 2017 to USD 5211 billion in 2022 [3]. Given that shipping surcharges play a key role in online consumers' purchase decisions and satisfaction [4,5], online retailers have incorporated free shipping into their business models.…”

Section: Introduction 1background and Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Have Your Cake and Eat It? Price Discount Programs under the Membership Free Shipping Policy in Online Retailing

Tang,

Hua,

Cheng

et al. 2024

JTAER

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Online retailers offer free shipping services, such as threshold free shipping (TFS) and membership free shipping (MFS), to promote sales and provide a better shopping experience to consumers in online retailing. Although MFS attracts more member-consumers, it encourages consumers to place more small orders than TFS, which significantly increases the operational costs of the online retailer. To address this issue, we propose two price discount policies under the MFS service, namely the limited-time discount and the threshold discount. Then, we build analytical models under these two policies to explore the impacts of offering price discounts on the retailer’s profit and consumers’ welfare. We find that no matter which discount policy is adopted, consumers are more likely to consolidate several small orders from different time periods into a big one to obtain the discount. The economies of scale generated by consumers consolidating their orders under these discount policies can help reduce online retailers’ operational costs. Therefore, regardless of any discount policy offered by the online retailer under the MFS service, consumers will place more big orders and more member-consumers are attracted, i.e., the online retailer can have its cake and eat it too. Our research findings provide decision-making insights for practitioners who offer free shipping services and price discounts to consumers in online retailing.

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Section: Contributions and Paper Arrangementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introduction 1background and Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Have Your Cake and Eat It? Price Discount Programs under the Membership Free Shipping Policy in Online Retailing

Tang,

Hua,

Cheng

et al. 2024

JTAER

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Is Smarter Better? A Moral Judgment Perspective on Consumer Attitudes about Different Types of AI Services

Fan,

Dai,

Wen

2024

JTAER

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AI is considered a key driver of industrial transformation and a strategic technology that will shape future development. With AI services continuing to permeate various sectors, concerns have emerged about the ethics of AI. This study investigates the effects of different types of AI services (mechanical, thinking, and affective AI services) on consumers’ attitudes through offline and online AI service experiments. We also construct a model to explore the mediating roles of identity threat and perceived control. The findings reveal that mechanical AI services negatively affect consumers’ attitudes while thinking and affective AI services have a positive effect. Additionally, we explore how consumers’ attitudes vary across different service scenarios and ethical judgments (utilitarianism and deontology). Our findings could offer practical guidance for enterprises providing AI services.

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Human Services or Non-Human Services? How Online Retailers Make Service Decisions

Cited by 2 publications

References 33 publications

Have Your Cake and Eat It? Price Discount Programs under the Membership Free Shipping Policy in Online Retailing

Have Your Cake and Eat It? Price Discount Programs under the Membership Free Shipping Policy in Online Retailing

Is Smarter Better? A Moral Judgment Perspective on Consumer Attitudes about Different Types of AI Services

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