How much are sellers willing to pay for the features offered by their e-commerce platform?

• Published in: Telecommunications policy 2019-11, Vol.43 (10), p.101832, Article 101832
• Main Authors: Lee, Searom, Lee, Sang Yup, Ryu, Min Ho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Conjoint analysis; E-commerce platform; Electronic commerce; Internet; Naver smart store; Online platform strategy; Telecommunications policy; Trade; Willingness to pay
• ISSN: 0308-5961; 1879-3258
• DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2019.101832

The success of an e-commerce platform is significantly dependent on the number of sellers and their quality. Thus, it is important to understand the factors that influence a seller's platform choice. This paper investigates features of an e-commerce platform on which sellers place high value when choosing a platform to sell their products, using a conjoint analysis. The data was collected by online survey from 1,796 sellers who are using Naver Smart Store (https://sell.smartstore.naver.com), which is one of the largest e-commerce platform in South Korea. After analyzing the willingness to pay for each combination of functions by separating six functions of Naver Smart Store, it was estimated that the MWTP ranged 3.05 to 4.48 for the main process related functions and 2.61–5.3 for the sub process related functions. MWTP can be considered as a benefits for the sellers since Naver does not require monetary commissions from sellers. This paper also shows that the higher technical understanding of the functions provides the more value to platform to sellers. •This paper investigates features of Korean e-commerce market with O2O.•This paper provides guidelines regarding online shopping platforms for sellers.•For the Naver Smart Store, the MWTP ranged 3.05 to 4.48 for the major functions and 2.61–5.3 for the ancillary functions.