The Internet has made profound changes in how people conduct their daily lives as well as how they buy goods and services. This study's objective is to shed light on the use and diffusion of online or electronic buying (e-buying). Canadian households have not adopted e-buying equally, as revealed by Statistics Canada's Household Internet Use Survey (HIUS) data of 1997 ? 2003. We explore how e-buying varies across age groups, genders, education levels, income levels, and the nature of goods. We first develop a simple model for e-buying demand in the context of a utility-maximizing individual choosing between e-buying and conventional buying. We employ a parameter reflecting individual taste, so we can study the influence of individual-specific factors in e-buying adoption decisions. The taste parameter is distributed in a population in some unknown way, and we try different distributions in empirical tests. We use the literature in conjunction with the model to derive the model's implications in terms of variables available in the HIUS datasets. We employ Tobit and Poisson regression models for the empirical tests. The tests suggest that household e-buying is more when household income is more, when heads of households are more educated, and for homogeneous goods; but that household e-buying is less when heads of households are female. This understanding may help policy makers, businesses, and other interested parties find ways to promote Internet use and e-buying across all segments of society.

The Internet has made profound changes in how people conduct their daily lives as well as how they buy goods and services. This study's objective is to shed light on the use and diffusion of online or electronic buying (e-buying). Canadian households have not adopted e-buying equally, as revealed by Statistics Canada's Household Internet Use Survey (HIUS) data of 1997 ? 2003. We explore how e-buying varies across age groups, genders, education levels, income levels, and the nature of goods. We first develop a simple model for e-buying demand in the context of a utility-maximizing individual choosing between e-buying and conventional buying. We employ a parameter reflecting individual taste, so we can study the influence of individual-specific factors in e-buying adoption decisions. The taste parameter is distributed in a population in some unknown way, and we try different distributions in empirical tests. We use the literature in conjunction with the model to derive the model's implications in terms of variables available in the HIUS datasets. We employ Tobit and Poisson regression models for the empirical tests. The tests suggest that household e-buying is more when household income is more, when heads of households are more educated, and for homogeneous goods; but that household e-buying is less when heads of households are female. This understanding may help policy makers, businesses, and other interested parties find ways to promote Internet use and e-buying across all segments of society.

Traditionally, group buying is a way to lower down the price due to the group based collective bargaining power. In the Internet age, because the Internet provides more efficient communication tools, it is much easier to recruit more participants to join the group buying to increase the bargaining power and then to lower down the buying price. Hence, in 1998, Mercata proposed an innovative website using group buying as its business model. Since then, there is more and more group buying websites with different group buying models. For single product group buying, there are two most often used models, price acceptance model and free pricing model. The purpose of this thesis is to probe the performance of these two models. First, whether there is difference between the final transaction volumes of these two models and how the difference will be intervened by different price level of product are explored. The next concern is to find what kinds of personal factors of participants will affect their choice of group buying model. The result is that the performance and participants¡¦ satisfaction of free pricing model are better than those of price acceptance model. In addition, the choice of group buying models will be influenced by the ideal price, group size expected by the participants and their motivations.

Thesis (M. A.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1999. / Bibliography: p. 232-250.

Fung Chi Tim. / Thesis (M.Sc.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53). / Abstract / Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- Objective --- p.4 / Chapter III. --- Methodology / Decision Methodology --- p.6 / Sensitivity Analysis and Re-iteration --- p.14 / Ease of use of the system --- p.22 / Chapter IV. --- Test Result --- p.26 / Chapter V. --- Future Research Direction --- p.28 / Chapter VI. --- Conclusion --- p.32 / Chapter VII. --- Appendix A Description of System --- p.35 / Chapter VIII. --- Appendix B User's Guide --- p.44 / Figures --- p.50 / References --- p.53

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With the development of electronic commerce and online group-buying, many studies tried to explore theories about online group-buying. Following the recent development of online group-buying, this research tries to provide a comprehensive framework to study online group-buying by proposing five different dimensions as a basis to develop various group-buying models. The five dimensions are initiator, price variety, bargain power, reservation price, and number of negotiators. The developed group-buying models are categorized into two categories, negotiating price before forming coaliation and negotiation price after forming coaliation. In addition, we also tried to analyze online group-buying model or behavior based on microeconomic theory. Hopefully, it can open a new research area in online group-buying models.

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1991. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-74). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1993. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-129). Also available via the Internet.

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