مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

 مجله تحقیقات بازاریابی – Journal of Business Research

The Internet has become an important accelerator for global trade (Gabrielsson & Gabrielsson, 2011; Petersen, Welch, & Liesch, 2002). The number of third-party cross-border business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce portals and transaction intermediaries is increasing, and enormous enterprises start their international venturing on such platforms. For example, Alibaba.com offers hundreds of millions of wholesale products to buyers located in more than 190 countries every year (Alibaba.com, 2015).

E-commerce platforms pose limited entry barriers to newcomers, given that many of the platforms do not charge admission fees but merely charge reasonable commission fees based on the value of online transactions (Chen, Seong, & Woetzel, 2014). Several platforms provide enabling services, such as free training courses for newcomers on online sales techniques, standard web store templates, and convenient technological features (Wang, Cavusoglu, & Deng, 2016). With the facilitation measures, e-commerce portals have accommodated a full spectrum of firms, ranging from massive small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to large players. Newcomers may easily enter the marketplace with low entry barriers and replicate the business model of the early movers (Makadok, 1998); thus, SMEs may encounter difficulty in possessing early-mover advantages (EMA) in cross-border B2B portals. In particular, cross-border B2B portals attract potential entrants and buyers from every corner of the world to participate in the global online trade, extremely intensifying the already hypercompetitive environment. These special features of cross-border B2B portals have shaken the foundation of conventional EMA and rendered the potential EMA unprecedentedly transient and easily obsolete.

People may express skepticism toward the EMA at such emerging, important and special portals. In particular, this subject raises several questions: Are early entrants at such platforms capable of enjoying their early entry? If an EMA exists, how long can it persist? Can any competitive strategy help prolong the EMA?