Abstract
Online to offline (O2O) is defined as e-commerce that combines searching and booking products or services online, and consumption in brick-and-mortar stores. Both China and other countries have witnessed the rise of O2O e-commerce platforms in recent years. This paper explores this rapid development from the supply side of O2O e-commerce platforms. Drawing upon the utilities roles of digital platforms and resource dependence theory, we propose and validate hypotheses on the relationships between platform choice and suppliers’ efficiency, using cinemas as an example. The findings support the significant and positive impact of platform choice on cinemas’ efficiency. Furthermore, we find that the more platforms a cinema chooses to link with, the higher efficiency the cinema will achieve. Our empirical results partially support that vertical integration has a negative impact on the relationship between platform choice and suppliers’ efficiency. This study enhances the understanding of the utilities roles of digital platforms and interaction between platform ecosystems and vertical integration.
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The authors appreciate all the helpful and insightful comments of anonymous reviewers and editors. The authors owe their thanks for the financial support provided by the National Social Science Foundation of China(Grant No. 17BGL200),the National Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 71671081, 71331004 and 71331003), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada(Grant No. 372400), and the Humanities and Social Science Project of Ministry of Education (Grant No. 15YJA630065).
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Wan, X., Chen, J. The relationship between platform choice and supplier’s efficiency- evidence from China’s online to offline (O2O)e-commerce platforms. Electron Markets 29, 153–166 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-017-0280-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-017-0280-3