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Reputation and Prices on the e-Market:Evidence from a Major French Platform

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  • Jolivet, Grégory
  • Jullien, Bruno
  • Postel-Vinay, Fabien

Abstract

The broad aim of this paper is to gain some insight into the quantitative importance of reputation in e-commerce. We use an exhaustive data set from one of France’s largest e-commerce platforms, PriceMinister.com , to estimate a statistical causal effect of a seller’s reputation (and size) on transaction prices for a uniquely large range of product categories (books, CDs, video games or DVDs), product conditions (used or new) and seller types (individual or professional sellers). We go beyond the results currently available in the empirical literature by tackling the issue of seller unobserved heterogeneity and the weak exogeneity of reputation (and size) in price equations. Our results show large-scale empirical evidence of a significant, positive and strong effect of seller reputation on prices. http://PriceMinister.com

Suggested Citation

  • Jolivet, Grégory & Jullien, Bruno & Postel-Vinay, Fabien, 2013. "Reputation and Prices on the e-Market:Evidence from a Major French Platform," TSE Working Papers 13-418, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised May 2014.
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:27407
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    2. Sokullu, Senay, 2023. "More Is Better, Or Not? An Empirical Analysis of Buyer Preferences for Variety on the E-Market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 450-470.
    3. Farajallah, Mehdi & Hammond, Robert G. & Pénard, Thierry, 2019. "What drives pricing behavior in Peer-to-Peer markets? Evidence from the carsharing platform BlaBlaCar," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 15-31.
    4. Che, X. & Katayama, H. & Lee, P., 2020. "Willingness to Pay for Brand Reputation: Lessons from the Volkswagen Diesel Emissions Scandal," Working Papers 20/02, Department of Economics, City University London.
    5. Zehao Chen & Yanchen Zhu & Tianyang Shen & Yufan Ye, 2022. "RETRACTED ARTICLE: The optimal pricing strategy to evaluate the reputations of sellers in online platforms using the game theory model," Operations Management Research, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 953-964, December.
    6. Daniel Kaimann, 2020. "Behind the Review Curtain: Decomposition of Online Consumer Ratings in Peer-to-Peer Markets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-17, July.
    7. Michelangelo Rossi, 2019. "How Does Competition Affect Reputation Concerns? Theory and Evidence from Airbnb," CESifo Working Paper Series 7972, CESifo.
    8. Banfi, Stefano & Choi, Sekyu & Villena-Roldán, Benjamín, 2022. "Sorting on-line and on-time," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    9. Eugenia Andreasen & Patricio Valenzuela, 2018. "Investment Opportunities and Corporate Credit Risk," Documentos de Trabajo 336, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
    10. Nicolas Eschenbaum & Helge Liebert, 2021. "Dealing with Uncertainty: The Value of Reputation in the Absence of Legal Institutions," Papers 2107.11314, arXiv.org.
    11. Stefano Castriota & Alessandro Fedele, 2021. "Does Excellence Pay Off? Theory and Evidence from the Wine Market," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS77, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    12. Fan, Ying & Ju, Jiandong & Xiao, Mo, 2016. "Reputation premium and reputation management: Evidence from the largest e-commerce platform in China," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 63-76.
    13. Mirko Duradoni & Stefania Collodi & Serena Coppolino Perfumi & Andrea Guazzini, 2021. "Reviewing Stranger on the Internet: The Role of Identifiability through “Reputation” in Online Decision Making," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-12, April.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce
    • D47 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Market Design
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

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