Investment Strategy Analysis Of B2B E-Intermediary Oriented To User Loyalty

With the coaction of financial crisis and government support,B2B e-intermediary, which provides transaction support for small and medium enterprises, is being faced with unprecedented development opportunities. B2B e-intermediary takes various measures actively to improve quality of B2B e-business platform for attracting more users and increasing market share. However, the low level of user loyalty prevents B2B e-intermediary to retain and increase market share. What are the influential factors of user loyalty, How to formulate effective investment strategy, such as investment strategy of new product development and system construstion, combined with influential factors of user loyalty, have become the major issue affecting the existense and development of B2B e-intermediary.Employing empirical analysis and quantitative modeling as main method, and drawing lessons from the theory and achievement of marketing management, statistics and game theory, first the measurement and validation of influential factors of user loyalty are carried on, and then user loyalty investment strategy model under different market structure is built incorporated with the influential factors of user loyalty and characters of B2B platform to discover the inner mechanism of investment strategy formulation. The results provides B2B e-intermediary with insights into retaining and increasing the market share and improving user loyalty, and therefore helps B2B e-intermediary maintain their sustainability and profitability.The main works are summarized as follows:(1)Propose the model for measuring influential factors of user loyalty of B2B e-intermediaryBased on literature research, the influential factors of network user loyalty are framed, including brand image, perceived quality, perceived value, user satisfaction and switching costs. Then, the concepts of the influential factors are defined, and the relationship hypotheses among the influential factors are proposed to build conceptual model. Furthermore, measurement dimensions of influential factors are designed to build measurement model.(2)Validate the model for measuring influential factors of user loyalty of B2B e-intermediaryThe questionnaire is designed based on measurement model, and data is collected from649samples of a Chinese B2B e-intermediary in114countries all over the world. Structural equation modeling technique is applied to validate the model without considering the moderating effect of switching cost, and the effect of brand image, perceived quality, perceived value and user satisfaction on user loyalty is explained. Furthermore, according to switching cost which is the important influential factors of user loyalty, structural equation modeling technique based on group and unconstrained approach are applied to validate the moderating effect of switching cost, and the effect of switching cost on user loyalty is explained. This part is the basis and foundation of investment strategy modeling.(3)Build user loyalty investment strategy model of a duopoly with sequential entryEmpirical results presents that perceived quality is the key influential factor of user loyalty. Therefore, improving the level of user loyalty needs to enhance B2B platform quality, and further needs to rely on information technology investment. Integrated with the effect of switching cost on user loyalty, and network externality, declining information technology cost, user loyalty investment strategy model of a duopoly with sequential entry is built based on Hotelling model. Then the interactive effect of switching cost, network externality, and declining information technology cost on investment strategy are discussed. Furthermore, investment strategy of B2B e-intermediary is put forward with the level of switching cost in empirical data.(4)Build user loyalty investment strategy model of multi-oligopolies with sequential entryLikewise, information technology investment which enhances B2B platform quality is applied to improve user loyalty. Integrated with declining information technology cost and competition intensity, user loyalty investment strategy model of multi-oligopolies with sequential entry is built based on Cournot model. Furthermore, the effect of declining information technology cost and competition intensity on investment strategy are discussed.Besides, user loyalty investment strategy model of a duopoly with sequential entry are extended. One is considering that information technology investment incurs not only fixed cost but also variable cost, user loyalty investment strategy model is built, and investment strategies under different cost construct are discussed. The other one is considering that buyers would spend attention cost such as time and energy on browsing product information offered by B2B platform, buyer loyalty investment strategy model is built, and the effect of attention cost on buyer loyalty investment strategy is discussed.