What Influences Online Sales Across Different Types of E-Commerce Platforms

The prosperity of the platform economy has facilitated online sales. This study investigates the influential factors of online sales across the online-to-offline (O2O) on-demand and traditional business-to-consumer (B2C) platforms. Our empirical evidence is based on data with a large sample size on two of the largest e-commerce platforms in China: an O2O on-demand platform and a traditional B2C platform. We find that the influencing mechanism and magnitude of the various factors are different between the O2O and B2C platforms. In detail, product rating and market share positively affect online sales, and the relative magnitude of market share impact is higher for the B2C platform than for the O2O platform. Clickstream positively affects online sales. Both the short- and long-term magnitude of impact are higher for the O2O platform than for the B2C platform. The long-term impact of clickstream in the O2O platform is higher than that in the short term. In addition, a price increase negatively affects online sales, especially for the O2O platforms. Our findings offer insights for various platforms to implement appropriate marketing strategies and post effective information to attract consumers and increase online sales.