{"id":3308,"date":"2009-08-21T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2009-08-21T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=3308"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:39:20","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:39:20","slug":"exploring-explaining-the-world-of-online-commerce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2009\/08\/exploring-explaining-the-world-of-online-commerce\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring, Explaining the World of Online Commerce"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Sulin<\/a>
Sulin Ba, associate professor of information systems. Photo by Jan Stallaert<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The world of online commerce is endlessly fascinating to Sulin Ba, an associate professor of information systems in the School of Business. Her research has explored how retailers provide online services, build brand recognition, and set prices online, and how sellers on eBay develop trust among their customers.<\/p>\n

One of her most intriguing subjects may be the virtual marketplace that takes place in Second Life, a virtual society started in 2003 that allows users to create 3-D avatars who lead lives that include buying, selling, and trading virtual property.<\/p>\n

Virtual Trading<\/h3>\n

Curious about this world a few years ago, Ba created an avatar for herself and marveled at the people who put up real U.S. dollars, converted them to \u201cLinden dollars,\u201d and bought virtual property, houses, jewelry, jeans, and furniture to embellish their virtual world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is so fascinating,\u201d she says. \u201cYou have people spending money to buy a chair, for example, and it\u2019s not a chair you can really sit on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ba, a native of Kaifeng, China who joined UConn\u2019s Department of Operations and Information Management in 2002, began studying \u201cX Street,\u201d the Second Life marketplace, to see what forces were at work in the virtual store.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed to understand what this world is all about,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s quite a vibrant marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ba and collaborators Jan Stallaert, Zhongju \u201cJohn\u201d Zhang, and Dan Ke focused their research on different types of permission rights that Second Life sellers grant their customers when peddling virtual goods. They might, for instance, agree to sell someone a chair they have designed and not let it be copied, she says. Or they may give permission for a buyer to buy the chair and change its color in the virtual world. There\u2019s another level of permission that grants the buyer the right to share the chair\u2019s design with other avatars.<\/p>\n

The researchers presented a paper titled, \u201cWhy Give Something for Nothing When You Can Charge? Investigating Virtual Goods Pricing and Permission Strategies,\u201d at a conference in Paris last year. It was well received, Ba says. The paper is now under review for publication in a prestigious academic journal.<\/p>\n

Ba, an associate professor of information systems, earned a master\u2019s degree and doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. From 1996 to 2002, she was an assistant professor at the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n

Last spring, she was on a sabbatical from UConn and was a visiting professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. She received a two-year grant from the National Natural Science Foundation in China to conduct research into how Chinese culture affects trust building in online business.<\/p>\n

Building Trust Online<\/h3>\n

Ba says she was one of the first U.S. researchers to study online trust and reputations in e-commerce. In 1999, her work on how small businesses can build trust among online customers became the basis of testimony before the Congressional House Committee on Small Business.<\/p>\n

Ba then turned her attention to the auction site, eBay. In 2002, she and former student Paul Pavlou <\/strong>published research showing that eBay\u2019s feedback system \u2013 in which buyers rate their experience with eBay sellers \u2013 was an effective way to build trust and reputation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that sellers with a good reputation and positive feedback on eBay can generate more trust, and that buyers are willing to pay more for their products,\u201d she says. \u201cIt seems so intuitive now, but back then, it was a big unknown. Our research is frequently cited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ba, Stallaert, and Zhang, who are also faculty members in UConn\u2019s operations and information management department, were honored earlier this year by the School of Business with its Best Paper Award. The paper, \u201cOnline Price Dispersion: A Game Theoretic Perspective and Empirical Evidence,\u201d has been accepted for publication in the prestigious Information Systems Research journal, says Professor Ram Gopal, head of the operations and information management department.<\/p>\n

Ba also received the Undergraduate Teaching Award from the business school in 2008 and its Teaching Innovation Award in 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cSulin is one of our senior scholars. She\u2019s a very accomplished person, and is doing excellent work in her field,\u2019\u2019 Gopal says.<\/p>\n

In the price dispersion paper, Ba, Stallaert, and Zhang show that the level of service a company provides and its brand recognition play a prominent role in the prices that can be set for goods, Gopal says.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir research has strong implications for businesses,\u201d Gopal says. \u201cWhat they have come up with is groundbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using game theory, an economic method used to understand behavior, the team of researchers found a \u201ctheoretically sound explanation\u201d for a \u201cvery puzzling phenomenon,\u201d Ba says, namely why some less-known online companies might not be able to charge higher prices when they improve their online customer service in contrast to companies with a better-known brand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a better model that might help businesses,\u201d Ba says, \u201cbecause online competition is so fierce.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sulin Ba studies how online retailers provide services, build brand recognition, and set prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-3308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 16:40:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3308"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36976,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3308\/revisions\/36976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3308"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=3308"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}