The New Era of Electronic Commerce: Mobile Commerce, Electronic Book Market and Novel Online Retail Strategies

Abstract

This dissertation examines three subareas of modern electronic commerce--the mobile app market, the electronic book market, and the online retail market--each of which is presented in a separate essay. Essay 1 focuses on how consumer rating behavior, i.e., how consumers give and evaluate ratings, influences the mobile app developers' pricing and quality decisions as well as the platform owner's decision on revenue sharing policy. Essay 2 analyzes two popular pricing models in the electronic book market, the wholesale pricing model and the agency pricing model. This effort characterizes the dynamics of e-book and e-reader prices under both models' equilibriums and then compares them. Essay 3 uses a data set from a popular online marketplace to study what factors affect the conversion rate dynamics of online retail. The results provide important guidance for online sellers who want to improve their conversion rates based on the specific statuses of their stores.