William T. Robinson

First-Mover Advantages from Pioneering New Markets: A Survey of Empirical Evidence

Market pioneers can develop first-mover advantages that span decades. The most general first-mover advantage that helps explain higher pioneer market share levels is a broad product line or brand proliferation. In markets for experience goods, pioneers tend to shape consumer tastes and preferences in favor of the pioneering brand. While the preliminary results vary by industry, they indicate that market pioneers donot tend to perish more often than later entrants. Accounting profits for market pioneers generally are lower in the first four years of operation, but higher thereafter. Overall, market pioneers follow innovative strategies that have high initial costs and risks, but yield high potential returns.

Industrial organization and consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction

This study brings together the fields of industrial organization and consumer research in an attempt to account for variations in consumer dissatisfaction among product categories. A major portion of these variations is empirically accounted for by distributional and cost/size factors. The theoretical explanations behind the empirical associations are discussed in the context of the correspondence between economic theory and consumer data.

Do me‐too brands price lower than the feature pioneer?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pricing strategies of me‐too brands.Design/methodology/approach – This research estimates an empirical model using a panel data of 20 consumer packaged goods sub‐categories.Findings – Me‐too brands face pricing constraints that restrict them from pricing aggressively versus the feature pioneer. The results show that private label brands have the most flexibility to price aggressively. Line extensions me‐toos and new brand name me‐toos do not cut price. Line extensions of national brands are constrained by their parent brands prices. New brand names are constrained by the higher costs of launching a new brand name. Thus, it appears that consistent product line pricing and covering the costs of launching a new brand name limit price competition versus the feature pioneer.Research limitations/implications – This research is limited by the lack of distribution data, the lack of customer mind‐set measures of brand equity, and the limited number of priv...

Survival determinants for online retailers

Survival determinants can influence important strategic decisions. Analysis of longitudinal data on 418 online retailers in fourteen Bizrate product categories yields insights into key survival determinants. Survival tends to be easier for introductory versus growth stage entrants. Survival, however, is more difficult for e-tailers who sell touch and feel products and for pure e-tailers who do not have the support of either brick and mortar stores or catalog operations. While introductory stage entrants have higher survival rates versus growth stage entrants, there is no significant impact for rank order of entry or pioneer leadtime. These mixed results point to modest early mover advantages in online retailing. While some e-tailers like Amazon.com benefited from moving early, many others suffered from pioneer burnout.

How do external reference prices influence online gift giving

The authors examine the role of external reference prices in a unique form of gift giving behaviour - online gift registries. A hierarchical Bayesian analysis of fulfilment data from 555 online wedding registries reveals the probability of a gift fulfilment follows a bimodal distribution around the gift registrys average price. This is consistent with the hypothesis that online gift purchases are driven by the average price of the registry, which serves as the reference price, and two competing motivations among gift givers. These motivations are a desire for social benefits (e.g., to enhance the relationship) and a desire to limit monetary costs (e.g., to save money). The former motivation favours gifts with higher than average prices; whereas the latter favours those with lower than average prices. Because an average priced gift does not appeal to either segment, its fulfilment probability is relatively low. Finally, because gifts with extremely high or extremely low prices have less appeal for each segment, the fulfilment probability curve is bimodal.