Research On The Effectiveness Of E-commerce Platforms In Governing Merchants’ Speculative Behavior

With the rapid development of Internet technology and the changing consumer structure,online shopping has become a major way of life for people,not only eliminating the restrictions of time and space,but also widening the sales channels for merchants.However,due to the profit-seeking nature of merchants,coupled with the virtual and hidden nature of the network environment,it is easy to derive merchant speculation,such as merchants selling shoddy products,false propaganda,not keeping service promises,not delivering goods on time and other acts that violate the legitimate rights and interests of consumers,and some merchants even hire a water force to infiltrate into competitors’ shops to give bad reviews or act as consumers to buy a large number of competitors’ goods,causing the rivals to run out of stock,and causing the rivals to be out of stock.In order to consolidate their position in the industry,some merchants even hire mercenaries to infiltrate their competitors’ shops to give bad reviews,or act as consumers to buy a large number of their competitors’ products,causing their competitors to run out of stock and frequently return them,thus affecting their reputation.In this regard,academics have conducted in-depth research and proposed measures to combat the problem from the legal,institutional and technical perspectives,but there is a lack of more convincing empirical research on its effectiveness.This study takes platform-based online marketplaces as the background,combines relevant literature at home and abroad,and constructs a model based on transaction cost theory,social exchange theory and reputation governance theory to classify merchant speculation into two types: strong and weak,and to design measurement questions on consumers’ perceived merchant speculation,platform governance mechanisms and platform reputation.Structural equation modelling is used to test which platform governance mechanism is more effective for different levels of merchant speculation.Hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the moderating effect of platform reputation on the relationship between platform governance mechanisms and strong and weak merchant speculation.The data from 318 questionnaires were analysed using SPSS19 and AMOS 19,and the results showed that.(1)There is a significant positive relationship between merchant weak speculative behaviour and merchant strong speculative behaviour.(2)The platform uses three mechanisms to manage merchant speculation: merchant regulation mechanism(ex ante),transaction protection mechanism(ex post)and dispute handling mechanism(ex post),among which merchant regulation mechanism(ex ante)and dispute handling mechanism(ex post)have a significant negative effect on both strong and weak merchant speculation,while transaction protection mechanism has a significant positive effect on weak merchant speculation.(3)The moderating effect of platform reputation.Platform reputation has a significant inhibiting effect on merchants’ strong and weak speculative behaviours,while platform reputation,as a moderating variable,can negatively moderate the relationship between transaction security mechanism(in the event),dispute handling mechanism(afterwards)and merchants’ weak speculative behaviours.In this way,it not only enriches the existing research theories,but also broadens the thinking on the governance of platforms.Theoretically,firstly,this paper discusses merchants’ strong speculative behaviour and weak speculative behaviour separately and explores the relationship between the two,enriching the existing research system;secondly,this paper distills three governance mechanisms among the existing platform governance mechanisms: ex ante,ex post and ex post,and tests the impact of the three governance mechanisms on merchants’ speculative behaviour;thirdly,it considers platform reputation as a moderating variable,revealing the complementary relationship between formal and informal governance of platforms.Thirdly,we consider platform reputation as a moderating variable and reveal the complementary relationship between formal and informal governance of the platform.In practice,the following management insights are proposed: firstly,merchants should be severely punished for weak speculative behaviours such as "cashback" and "swiping";secondly,more reasonable and effective credit guarantee mechanisms and consumer protection schemes should be set up;thirdly,the deterrent effect of platform reputation should be fully utilised in combating merchant speculation.Thirdly,the deterrent effect of the platform’s reputation and the inhibiting effect of the platform’s governance mechanism should be fully utilised in combating merchant speculation.Finally,the conclusions of the study are summarised,the shortcomings of the study are pointed out,and the future research development is foreseen.