Early mover advantage in e commerce platforms with low entry barriers: The role of customer relationship management capabilities
This research investigates whether early mover advantage (EMA) exists among entrepreneurial e tailers operating on third party e commerce platforms. Contrary to traditional wisdom, the current research hypothesizes that e tailers may enjoy early mover advantages because of the consumer demand inertia amplified by the nature of the Internet and the system design characteristics of e commerce platforms. We also argue that customer relationship management capabilities help enhance early mover advantages in an online setting. We employ panel data on 7309 e tailers to perform analyses and find empirical evidence that strongly supports the abovementioned hypotheses.
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