The prosperity of the platform economy has facilitated online sales. This study investigates the influential factors of online sales across the online-to-offline (O2O) on-demand and traditional business-to-consumer (B2C) platforms. Our empirical evidence is based on data with a large sample size on two of the largest e-commerce platforms in China: an O2O on-demand platform and a traditional B2C platform. We find that the influencing mechanism and magnitude of the various factors are different between the O2O and B2C platforms. In detail, product rating and market share positively affect online sales, and the relative magnitude of market share impact is higher for the B2C platform than for the O2O platform. Clickstream positively affects online sales. Both the short- and long-term magnitude of impact are higher for the O2O platform than for the B2C platform. The long-term impact of clickstream in the O2O platform is higher than that in the short term. In addition, a price increase negatively affects online sales, especially for the O2O platforms. Our findings offer insights for various platforms to implement appropriate marketing strategies and post effective information to attract consumers and increase online sales.

Purpose: The overuse and scarcity of resources emphasize the importance of the circular economy. The technology facilitated by Industry 4.0 stimulates the implementation of the circular economy that aims to reduce resource use and enhance operational efficiency. This study focuses on enhancing delivery efficiency in an online-to-offline (O2O) context from an Industry 4.0 technology-facilitated personal configuration perspective, that is, comparing in-house and crowdsourced delivery efficiency in China's O2O on-demand food delivery context.Design/methodology/approach: The authors collect 128,152 orders from 38 restaurants of an online restaurant chain in China. The authors adopt multiple regression analysis to examine the delivery efficiency gap between in-house and crowdsourced deliverymen and the determinants of this efficiency gap.Findings: The findings of this study reveal that crowdsourced deliverymen exhibit higher delivery efficiency, in terms of a shorter delivery time, than in-house deliverymen. In addition, the authors find that platforms providing monetary incentives or implementing late delivery penalties enlarge this efficiency gap. Furthermore, the authors show that external factors, such as working on weekends and bad weather conditions, contribute to the narrowing of this performance efficiency.Practical implications: The study's findings suggest that platforms should use advanced technologies facilitated by Industry 4.0 to optimize their personnel configuration to enhance their delivery efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. The effective approaches include using financial incentives and improving working schedules.Originality/value: The authors' findings contribute to the online fulfillment literature by focusing on delivery efficiency in the O2O context from the Industry 4.0 technology-facilitated personnel configuration perspective. The authors examine how internal and external factors moderate the performance efficiency between these two types of deliverymen.

Online grocery shopping is booming since COVID-19. Consumers often post reviews to reflect their shopping experiences. Based on signaling theory, we propose a conceptual framework to investigate the signaling mechanism of online grocery shoppers’ review writing behaviors and how they act to signaling environment (i.e., COVID-19 pandemic). We find signal quality (review characteristics) affects signaling effectiveness (review helpfulness), and such effect is alleviated during the pandemic. We further evaluate review reliability using the alignment between observed signal (review characteristics) and intended signal (reviewer overall star rating). We find the review reliability significantly depends on various review characteristics—review content and linguistic characteristics—and these predictive relationships are stronger during the pandemic. Across the review content, we find signals relating to product delivery logistics such as delivery efficiency, last-mile connectivity, or packaging, are critical but under-investigated. Such signals may not directly correlate to the product value. However, their role in online delivery may become more significant and influential in the post-COVID era. In addition, we find signal inconsistency (discrepancy among review characteristics) affects consumers’ promptness in posting subsequent reviews but is less significant during the pandemic. Our findings provide a holistic view of the signaling mechanisms in the online consumer community by revealing the varying signaling effects across the pandemic and business-as-usual and further facilitate online platform managers to better navigate the new normal.