Effectiveness of Ecosystem Strategies for the Sustainability of Marketplace Platform Ecosystems
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Marketplace Platforms and Physical Intermediary Firms
1.2. Delivery Crisis in the Marketplace Platform Ecosystem
1.3. Research Question and Purpose
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Literature Review
2.1.1. Platform Ecosystems
2.1.2. Evolutional Mechanisms of Platform Ecosystems
2.1.3. Agent-Based Simulation
2.2. Conceptualization and Hypothesis
2.2.1. Mechanisms behind the Collapse of Marketplace Platform Ecosystems
2.2.2. Application of the Ecosystem Strategy for Physical Intermediary Firms
2.3. Analysis Framework
2.4. Structure of the Agent Simulation
2.4.1. Platform Agent
2.4.2. Consumer Agents
2.4.3. Logistics Firm Agents
2.4.4. Third-Party Seller Agents
2.5. Simulation Experiments
2.5.1. Experimental Conditions
2.5.2. Analysis of Simulation Results and Evaluation Indicators
3. Results
3.1. Reproduction of the Japanese Platform-Based Marketplace
3.2. Comparison before and after the Introduction of the Ecosystem Strategy
4. Discussion
4.1. Theoritical Implications
4.2. Practial Implications
4.3. Limitations and Future Work
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A. Detailed Specifications of Agent Designs
Appendix A.1. Consumer Agents
Appendix A.1.1. Settings of Consumer Agents
Appendix A.1.2. Consumer Questionnaire Survey
- Payment amount: (1000 yen discount, 500 yen discount, price the same as the retail store, 500 yen higher, 1000 yen higher).
- Product variety: (1/4 of the store’s, 1/2 of the store’s, same level as the store, double the store’s, four times the store’s).
- Probability of delay in delivery: (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%).
- Minimum delivery period: (0 days, 3 days, 6 days, 9 days, 12 days).
Model 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 | |||||||
Variables | Value | S.E. | p Value | Value | S.E. | p Value | Value | S.E. | p Value |
Influence of platform usage fee | −17.85 | 0.19 | ** | −15.87 | 0.51 | ** | −5.47 | 0.38 | ** |
Influence of product variety on the platform | 0.15 | 0.02 | ** | 0.14 | 0.05 | ** | 0.25 | 0.05 | ** |
Influence of delay probability of delivery | −0.78 | 0.05 | ** | −1.14 | 0.14 | ** | −0.09 | 0.15 | |
Influence of minimum delivery period | −0.09 | 0.00 | ** | −0.48 | 0.02 | ** | −0.44 | 0.02 | ** |
Intercept | 0.38 | 0.04 | ** | 1.66 | 0.11 | ** | 0.86 | 0.10 | ** |
Rate of consumer | 0.73 | 0.11 | 0.08 | ||||||
Model 4 | Model 5 | Model 6 | |||||||
Variables | Value | S.E. | p Value | Value | S.E. | p Value | Value | S.E. | p Value |
Influence of platform usage fee | −5.94 | 0.66 | ** | −16.34 | 1.24 | ** | −3.10 | 0.64 | ** |
Influence of product variety of the platform | 0.46 | 0.10 | ** | 0.37 | 0.13 | ** | 1.23 | 0.11 | ** |
Influence of delay probability of delivery | −4.63 | 0.32 | ** | −5.97 | 0.46 | ** | −0.39 | 0.26 | |
Influence of minimum delivery date | −0.11 | 0.02 | ** | −0.23 | 0.03 | ** | −0.04 | 0.02 | * |
Intercept | 0.71 | 0.17 | ** | 1.95 | 0.30 | ** | −0.39 | 0.20 | * |
Rate of consumer | 0.03 | 0.02 | 0.02 |
Appendix A.2. Logistics Firm Agents
Appendix A.3. Third-Party Seller Agents
Appendix B. Simplification of the Simulation System
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Platform Type | Example of Platforms | Complementors | Intermediator of Transactions | Intermediator of Goods | Interface with Consumers |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hardware platform | Nintendo Switch; PlayStation 4 | Software provider | Retail shop | Logistics firm | Retail shop; Interface of the platform |
Application and/or software download platform | Google Play; App Store; PlayStation 4; | Software and/or application provider | Platform | - (Internet supplier) | Interface of the platform |
Marketplace platform | Amazon.com | Product provider | Platform | Logistics firm | Logistics firms; Interface of the platform |
Service intermediary platform | Expedia, Hotels.com | Service provider | Platform | Transporter (for service customers) | Service provider; Interface of the platform |
Parameter | Value |
---|---|
Introduction of the proposed ecosystem strategy | Not introduced or introduced |
Additional delivery fee | 0, 0.005, 0.01, …, 0.095, 0.1 (21 patterns) |
Maximum number of consumer agents | 3000, 3500, 4000, …, 7000 (9 patterns) |
Simulation steps | 1, 2, …, 5000 steps |
Number of repetitions of experimental trial | 50 times |
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Inoue, Y.; Hashimoto, M.; Takenaka, T. Effectiveness of Ecosystem Strategies for the Sustainability of Marketplace Platform Ecosystems. Sustainability 2019, 11, 5866. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11205866
Inoue Y, Hashimoto M, Takenaka T. Effectiveness of Ecosystem Strategies for the Sustainability of Marketplace Platform Ecosystems. Sustainability. 2019; 11(20):5866. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11205866
Chicago/Turabian StyleInoue, Yuki, Masataka Hashimoto, and Takeshi Takenaka. 2019. "Effectiveness of Ecosystem Strategies for the Sustainability of Marketplace Platform Ecosystems" Sustainability 11, no. 20: 5866. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11205866