Empirical Analysis on Product Based Differentiation Strategies in B2C industry

제품 특성과 B2C 차별화 전략의 실증 분석

Differentiation strategies have been suggested as the critical sources of competitive advantage in B2C industry where customers can switch internet shopping mall with one click with virtually no transaction cost. Indeed, competition on low pricing cannot be a viable strategy in B2C industry. Moreover, cultivating customer loyalty to attain profitability is still a challenging task for most internet shopping mall. In this study, we provide empirical analysis results on key managerial variables that indicate the difference between the product categories in terms of customer perception on relative value importance. We first identified comprehensive managerial variables and organized them in terms of customer decision stage. Next, with reference to extant literatures on product characteristics based e-commerce strategy, hypotheses are developed to formalize the customer value differences on the key managerial variables. Empirical testing results indicated that there are significant differences on customer perceived value of the key managerial variables between the product groups. The findings provide useful insight for further study on e-commerce differentiation strategy.