E-Commerce Capability and Market Expansion in Forward-Integrated Export Firms

Against the backdrop of intensifying global industrial competition and rapidly evolving digital trade environments, forward-integrated export firms face prominent obstacles in their overseas cross-border expansion efforts. These challenges frequently include severe market information asymmetry, complex supply chain logistics, and unfamiliar platform regulatory rules that hinder sustainable growth. Taking the United States decorative lighting market as the primary research context, this comprehensive study constructs a novel Market Expansion Impact Factor (MEIF) model alongside a detailed resource input-market expansion mapping framework. This theoretical foundation is rigorously built upon the established 7P marketing mix theory and strategic SWOT analysis. Based on the extensive panel data collected from 200 representative sample firms over a multi-year period, this paper conducts rigorous empirical investigations, including baseline regression, mediating effect analysis, and comprehensive robustness tests. The empirical results reveal that targeted marketing expenditure, specialized labor input, and advanced technology investment significantly and positively promote these firms' overseas market performance. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that sustained user growth plays a crucial partial mediating role in the aforementioned influencing relationship, bridging the gap between initial resource allocation and ultimate market success. Ultimately, this study clarifies the most effective resource allocation path for forward-integrated export firms. It provides highly practical optimization strategies for their cross-border e-commerce expansion and substantially enriches the existing theoretical research concerning digital capability, strategic management, and international market expansion.