TY - JOUR
T1 - Linking e-service quality and markups
T2 - The role of imperfect information in the supply chain
AU - Rabinovich, Elliot
N1 - Funding Information:
The W.P. Carey School of Business and the Center for Services Leadership at Arizona State University provided financial support to fund this research. The staff at the music CD wholesaler and at the Recording Industry Association of America, as well as Janet McCabe (Senior Director) at comScore Networks Inc. provided valuable input for this paper. I would like to thank Thomas Choi and Manus Rungtusanatham at Arizona State University and Joseph P. Bailey and Philip T. Evers at the University of Maryland for their helpful comments on this paper. I also wish to acknowledge Bryan Ashenbaum's data collection support and Robert Haynes’ copyediting assistance during the development of this paper. Finally, I am grateful to the Editor in Chief, the Associate Editor, and the reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
PY - 2007/1
Y1 - 2007/1
N2 - Consumers' access to the Internet has greatly expanded their ability to compare offers across a wide array of retailers. In some particular industries (i.e., music), the Internet has also provided consumers with unprecedented opportunities to consider retail offers involving physical goods (i.e., CDs) alongside specialized services. As shown in this paper, these circumstances have important implications for the design and management of customer relationships. These circumstances also permeate relationships across retail and wholesale echelons in music supply chains. In particular, an empirical analysis shows that online consumer access to information on CD retail markups compels retailers to market a level of service quality that is consistent with that markup information. However, limitations in consumer access to markup data, available only to wholesalers and to Internet retailers, allow retailers to inversely link their markups to the fulfillment service quality offered to consumers with wholesaler support.
AB - Consumers' access to the Internet has greatly expanded their ability to compare offers across a wide array of retailers. In some particular industries (i.e., music), the Internet has also provided consumers with unprecedented opportunities to consider retail offers involving physical goods (i.e., CDs) alongside specialized services. As shown in this paper, these circumstances have important implications for the design and management of customer relationships. These circumstances also permeate relationships across retail and wholesale echelons in music supply chains. In particular, an empirical analysis shows that online consumer access to information on CD retail markups compels retailers to market a level of service quality that is consistent with that markup information. However, limitations in consumer access to markup data, available only to wholesalers and to Internet retailers, allow retailers to inversely link their markups to the fulfillment service quality offered to consumers with wholesaler support.
KW - E-commerce
KW - E-services
KW - Logistics/distribution
KW - MIS/operations interface
KW - Service operations
KW - Supply chain management
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jom.2005.11.013
DO - 10.1016/j.jom.2005.11.013
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33845316907
SN - 0272-6963
VL - 25
SP - 14
EP - 41
JO - Journal of Operations Management
JF - Journal of Operations Management
IS - 1
ER -