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Trends in E-Business,
E-Services, and
E-Commerce:
Impact of Technology on
Goods, Services, and Business
Transactions
In Lee
Western Illinois University, USA
A volume in the Advances in E-Business

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Trends in E-Business, E-Services, and E-Commerce Impact of Technology on Goods, Services, and Business
Transactions
In Lee (Western Illinois University, USA)
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Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Business Convergence, Computing, and Legality

Reema Khurana (Institute of Management Technology-Ghaziabad, India) and Rashmi Aggarwal (Institute of
Management Technology-Ghaziabad, India)
Research and Development in E-Business through Service-Oriented Solutions

Katalin Tarnay (University of Pannonia, Hungary & Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary)
Sandor Imre (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary) and Lai Xu (Bournemouth University,
UK)
Mobile Services Industries, Technologies, and Applications in the Global Economy

Information Science Reference • copyright 2013 • 368pp • H/C (ISBN: 9781466619814) • US $190.00 (our price)
Strategy, Adoption, and Competitive Advantage of Mobile Services in the Global Economy
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Electronic Commerce Management for Business Activities and Global Enterprises Competitive Advantages
In Lee (Western Illinois University)
Strategic and Pragmatic E-Business Implications for Future Business Practices

Karim Mohammed Rezaul (Glyndwr University, UK)
E-Novation for Competitive Advantage in Collaborative Globalization Technologies for Emerging E-Business
Strategies
Hugh M. Pattinson (University of Western Sydney, Australia) and David R. Low (University of Western Sydney,
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Table of Contents
Preface . ................................................................................................................................................ xii
Acknowledgment . .............................................................................................................................. xvi
Introduction........................................................................................................................................xvii
Chapter 1
From Integration to Social Media: Understanding Electronic Marketplace............................................ 1
Kayvan Miri Lavassani, North Carolina Central University, USA
Bahar Movahedi, North Carolina Central University, USA
Vinod Kumar, Carleton University, Canada
Chapter 2
Beneficial E-Personalization and Related Technological Innovations Applied to E-Tailing ............... 20
Alan D. Smith, Robert Morris University, USA
Chapter 3
Mobile Commerce Adoption in Organizations: A Literature Review and Preliminary Findings.......... 47
Husam Alfahl, Griffith University Australia
Louis Sanzogni, Griffith University Australia
Luke Houghton, Griffith University Australia
Kuldeep Sandhu, Griffith University Australia
Chapter 4
Online Brand Expansion towards the Offline Setting: Which Way to Go?........................................... 69
Rafael Bravo, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
Leif E. Hem, Norwegian School of Economics, Norway
José M. Pina, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
Chapter 5
Examining the Impact of Web 2.0 Applications on Knowledge Management Performance ............... 90
Scott Buechler, Elon University, USA
Richard Hartshorne, University of Central Florida, USA
Haya Ajjan, Elon University, USA
Chapter 6
An Exploratory Study of Customer Satisfaction in a Community Bank ............................................ 111
Somjit Barat, Pennsylvania State University, USA
John E. Spillan, University of North Carolina, USA
Chapter 7
Collaborative Business Service Modelling and Improving: An Information-Driven Approach......... 128
Thang Le Dinh, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada
Thanh Thoa Pham Thi, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
Chapter 8
E-Strategy and Soft Landings for Franchising in Emerging Markets ................................................ 148
Ye-Sho Chen, Louisiana State University, USA
Ed Watson, Louisiana State University, USA
Renato F. L. Azevedo, University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign, USA & University of
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Chapter 9
Improving Network-Based Marketing by Personalized Recommendation ........................................ 160
Leila Esmaeili, Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran
Golshan Assadat Afzali, Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran
Chapter 10
Internet Incidence on SME’s Sales: A Propensity Score Matching Analysis...................................... 175
María Verónica Alderete, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur &
(IESS)-CONICET-Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS), Argentina
Chapter 11
An Update on the Use of Facebook as a Marketing Tool by Private Educational Institutions in
Singapore ............................................................................................................................................ 191
H. K. Leng, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Chapter 12
Online Corporate Reputation Management and IT: From Reactive to Proactive Organizations ....... 206
Alberto Francesconi, University of Pavia, Italy
Claudia Dossena, University of Pavia, Italy
Chapter 13
A Case Study for Business Integration as a Service ........................................................................... 229
Victor Chang, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK & University of Southampton, UK
Related References . .......................................................................................................................... 255
Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 277
About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 315
Index.................................................................................................................................................... 318
Detailed Table of Contents
Preface . ................................................................................................................................................ xii
Acknowledgment . .............................................................................................................................. xvi
Introduction..........................................................................................................................................xvii
Chapter 1
From Integration to Social Media: Understanding Electronic Marketplace............................................ 1
Kayvan Miri Lavassani, North Carolina Central University, USA
Bahar Movahedi, North Carolina Central University, USA
Vinod Kumar, Carleton University, Canada
EMs as trade tools have been the subject of several disruptive changes during the past few decades. The
chapter discusses the importance of EM integration and market knowledge management as today’s main
concerns affecting the effectiveness and efficiency of EMs. After explaining the concerns regarding EM
integration at intra- and inter-organizational levels, the chapter mentions the role of social media as an
example of new technological tools that affect EMs. By highlighting the importance of understanding
EMs this paper proposes a four level analytical tool for differentiating B2B EMs.
Chapter 2
Beneficial E-Personalization and Related Technological Innovations Applied to E-Tailing ............... 20
Alan D. Smith, Robert Morris University, USA
The numerous advancements in electronic-personalization communication have generated both benefits
and challenges as online retailers try to regain competitive advantages in the current global recession. A
literature review of personalization strategies was used to generate a survey instrument to examine the
important characteristics of such programs from business professionals. Through appropriate multivariate
analyses and data-reduction techniques, the basic elements e-personalization, namely online purchasing
behaviors, personalized communications, information retrieval services, degree of personal Web pres-
ence, quality assurance of customer service, and the promotion of customization services, were found
to be conceptually and statistically related to retailer benefits of e-personalization (increased buying and
creates customer loyalty) from the viewpoint of managers for a large goods and services chain store
headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Chapter 3
Mobile Commerce Adoption in Organizations: A Literature Review and Preliminary Findings.......... 47
Husam Alfahl, Griffith University Australia
Louis Sanzogni, Griffith University Australia
Luke Houghton, Griffith University Australia
Kuldeep Sandhu, Griffith University Australia
This chapter comprehensively reviews research conducted on mobile commerce adoption in organiza-
tions. From the literature, a number of factors from adoption theories such as the diffusion of innovation
theory, the technology acceptance model, and so forth are identified, analyzed, and tabulated together
with a set of research propositions in order to demonstrate areas in need of further research. The chapter
proposes 15 adoption factors that may affect the intention to adopt mobile commerce in organizations.
These factors are categorized into 3 groups, namely environmental and organizational, technological,
and managerial and other factors, and explored through a qualitative study to shed light on their verac-
ity. The authors conclude the argument by presenting a proposed adoption model and showing potential
areas of interest to future researchers.
Chapter 4
Online Brand Expansion towards the Offline Setting: Which Way to Go?........................................... 69
Rafael Bravo, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
Leif E. Hem, Norwegian School of Economics, Norway
José M. Pina, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
Brand extension and brand alliances are two possible strategies to expand the brand towards different
product categories. In this chapter, the authors focus on brands that are well-known for their online
services launching offline products. They analyse the results of these strategies in terms of their effects
on parent brand image and under different conditions of initial brand image and perceived fit. In order
to meet these aims, an empirical study was conducted to 407 undergraduates in a Spanish University.
Data are analysed through multivariate analysis of variance. Main results lead us to conclude that: (1)
the effects of extensions and alliances are mainly negative on the online brand image, (2) the impact
is focused specially on the functional and emotional dimensions of brand image, (3) the effect is more
negative for online brands with higher image than for online brands with lower image, and (4) the effect
is more negative in the case of an alliance with an offline brand with low image than in the case of an
alliance with an offline brand with high image or in a brand extension. This work covers some gaps in
the previous literature in online branding. The authors apply concepts and theories used in brand exten-
sions and alliances literature in an offline setting by delving into the differences of these effects on the
brand image dimensions. The results obtained in this work may help brand practitioners expand their
brands towards different product categories.
Chapter 5
Examining the Impact of Web 2.0 Applications on Knowledge Management Performance ............... 90
Scott Buechler, Elon University, USA
Richard Hartshorne, University of Central Florida, USA
Haya Ajjan, Elon University, USA
There has been an increasing interest in the use of Web 2.0 applications to enhance the effectiveness of
internal communication and improve knowledge management within the organization. However, extant
Web 2.0 research has focused on the implementation, adaption patterns, and benefits, and little has been
done to empirically examine the determinants of continuance use of Web 2.0 within the organization
and its impact on knowledge performance. The objective of this study is to empirically examine the
impact of both hedonic and utilitarian performance on the intention of knowledge workers to continue
to use Web 2.0 applications within an organization, and then investigate the influence of the continuance
use decision on knowledge management performance. The proposed model is tested using a survey of
knowledge workers using Web 2.0 applications in their organizations. The results of the PLS analysis
empirically validate the relationship between antecedents, continuance use, and knowledge management
performance. Research and managerial implications of our findings are presented.
Chapter 6
An Exploratory Study of Customer Satisfaction in a Community Bank ............................................ 111
Somjit Barat, Pennsylvania State University, USA
John E. Spillan, University of North Carolina, USA
In a competitive business environment, delivering high level of customer service is critical. Investigat-
ing this aspect further, the current chapter focuses on the physical and service attributes of consumer
satisfaction in the banking business, and takes a fresh look at how community banks can compete with
larger banks in niche service areas. The goal of the research is to find out whether the customers: 1) were
satisfied with every visit to the branch; 2) felt welcome when they came to the branch; 3) considered the
bank’s products substantial for their needs; 4) were satisfied with the image of the bank; and 5) had any
concerns about their bank deposits and about the bank’s (financial) position during difficult economic
times. The findings indicate that customer responses are mixed on these issues. Interesting implications
and ideas for further research also emanate from the current study.
Chapter 7
Collaborative Business Service Modelling and Improving: An Information-Driven Approach......... 128
Thang Le Dinh, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada
Thanh Thoa Pham Thi, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
In the context of globalization, the competitive advantage of each service enterprise depends greatly on
the ability to use network architectures to collaborate efficiently in business services. The chapter aims
at introducing an information-driven approach that provides a conceptual foundation for modelling ef-
fectively and improving incrementally collaborative business services. The chapter begins by presenting
the necessity for and principles of the information-driven approach. Then it presents the business service
foundation for the proposed approach that consists of three different dimensions: 1) service proposal,
corresponding to the service value creation network level, 2) service creation, corresponding to the ser-
vice system level, and 3) service operation, corresponding to the service level. The chapter continues
with a discussion and review of the relevant literature, followed by the conclusion and suggestions for
further research.
Chapter 8
E-Strategy and Soft Landings for Franchising in Emerging Markets ................................................ 148
Ye-Sho Chen, Louisiana State University, USA
Ed Watson, Louisiana State University, USA
Renato F. L. Azevedo, University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign, USA & University of
Sao Paulo, Brazil
International franchising as a global growth strategy, especially in emerging markets, is gaining popu-
larity. For example, the U.S. Commercial Service estimated that: (1) China, having over 2,600 brands
with 200,000 franchised retail stores in over 80 sectors in 2007, is now the largest franchise market in
the world; (2) India, having over 70 international franchise operations successfully operating with an
investment of $1.1 billion and sales turnover of $2.7 billion in 2009, has made franchising the second
fastest-growing industry in the country. The popularity of franchising continues to increase as the world
witnesses an emergence of a new e-business model, Netchising, which is the combination power of the
Internet for global demand-and-supply processes and the international franchising arrangement for local
responsiveness. The essence of franchising lies in managing the good relationship between the franchi-
sor and the franchisee. In this chapter, the authors show that e-business strategy plays an important role
in growing and nurturing such a good relationship. In addition, the chapter discusses how an effective
e-strategy can help a growing franchise go abroad to emerging markets through soft landings to reduce
risks and costs.
Chapter 9
Improving Network-Based Marketing by Personalized Recommendation ........................................ 160
Leila Esmaeili, Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran
Golshan Assadat Afzali, Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran
Social networks, which are a newfound phenomenon, have gained much attention. These networks,
which are based on Web 2.0, provide a free and flexible environment for users and organizations to make
diverse contents and, based on it, absorb users. Marketing is one of the main activities done in social
networks for incoming purpose. Organizations and companies are trying to attract potential and actual
customers by targeted advertising in these networks. Variety and diversity of advertising and market-
ing methods in social networks has made users confused and uncertain. To solve this problem, in this
chapter, the authors propose a group recommender system, which is based on data mining techniques,
information theory, and user preferences. This system, despite other existing methods, could yet support
users who are not in relation with the others or their activity history is not available. Each group can
be fans of a company or one or more products of it. The results show the superiority of this chapter’s
proposed model rather than the other.
Chapter 10
Internet Incidence on SME’s Sales: A Propensity Score Matching Analysis...................................... 175
María Verónica Alderete, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur &
(IESS)-CONICET-Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS), Argentina
The purpose of this paper is to determine how much is the “bonus” or “prize” to the sales per worker of
Internet-using firms compared to not Internet-using firms. The authors employ some matching techniques
based on an Argentinean database. The authors first present a binary logit model, in which the dependent
variable is a dichotomous variable equal to 1 if the firm adopted Internet and 0 otherwise, to evaluate
the factors that influence a firm’s probability of adopting Internet. A propensity score matching (PSM)
model is then used to assess the impact of using Internet on the sales per worker. The authors find stati-
cally significant differences in the sales average between firms that are similar in many dimensions such
as location, size, and sales market except for the Internet adoption decision. By probing that Internet
access improves SME’s sales, the chapter is validating the Public Sector ICT modernization programs
for SME. The contribution of this paper consists of using a well known technique as PSM to analyze
a recent field of research which is the contribution of Internet adoption to the firm’s sales per worker.
Chapter 11
An Update on the Use of Facebook as a Marketing Tool by Private Educational Institutions in
Singapore ............................................................................................................................................ 191
H. K. Leng, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
With social network sites growing in popularity, many organisations have started to use this new platform
to market themselves. However, marketing on social network sites is different from traditional market-
ing. Its value lies in engaging members of the social network and generating shared cultural meaning
of the advertised brand rather than promoting awareness of the brand to a large number of people. This
is not apparent to marketers and as such, many organizations are not leveraging on this new media tool
effectively. This chapter is an update on an earlier paper which examined the use of Facebook as a mar-
keting tool by private educational institutions offering degree programmes in Singapore. The findings in
the earlier paper have suggested that marketing on social network sites remained in its infancy. In this
update, it was found that three years later, there has been an increase in the use of social network sites
by educational institutes in Singapore. There is also evidence that there is greater engagement and the
building of a virtual community on the social network sites. This suggests that the use of social network
sites as a marketing tool by educational institutes in Singapore is maturing as the organisations are be-
ginning to understand how to leverage on social network sites to market themselves more effectively.
Chapter 12
Online Corporate Reputation Management and IT: From Reactive to Proactive Organizations ....... 206
Alberto Francesconi, University of Pavia, Italy
Claudia Dossena, University of Pavia, Italy
According to the Resource-Based View, the Corporate Reputation (CR) is seen as a core resource and a
major factor in gaining competitive advantage. Thanks to the development of Web-based technologies,
stakeholders can easily spread their own perspective about an organization, its products, services, brands,
members and so forth, affecting its online CR. This work focuses on “online corporate reputation” and
the exploitation of IT (Online Reputation Management Systems) to support the related management
practices. Taking a pragmatic approach, the authors develop a case-study based on the experience de-
veloped by an Italian leading e-service provider.
Chapter 13
A Case Study for Business Integration as a Service ........................................................................... 229
Victor Chang, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK & University of Southampton, UK
This chapter presents Business Integration as a Service (BIaaS) to allow two services to work together
in the Cloud to achieve a streamline process. The authors illustrate this integration using two services,
Return on Investment (ROI) Measurement as a Service (RMaaS) and Risk Analysis as a Service (RAaaS),
in the case study at the University of Southampton. The case study demonstrates the cost-savings and
the risk analysis achieved, so two services can work as a single service. Advanced techniques are used
to demonstrate statistical services and 3D Visualisation services under the remit of RMaaS and Monte
Carlo Simulation as a Service behind the design of RAaaS. Computational results are presented with their
implications discussed. Different types of risks associated with Cloud adoption can be calculated easily,
rapidly, and accurately with the use of BIaaS. This case study confirms the benefits of BIaaS adoption,
including cost reduction and improvements in efficiency and risk analysis. Implementation of BIaaS in
other organisations is also discussed. Important data arising from the integration of RMaaS and RAaaS
are useful for management and stakeholders of University of Southampton.
Related References . .......................................................................................................................... 255
Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 277
About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 315
Index.................................................................................................................................................... 318
xii
Preface
E-business has provided firms with new ways of approaching, acquiring, and retaining customers. E-
business brought about a paradigm shift caused by “disruptive” technology that is radically changing
the traditional way of doing business. The paradigm shift was unprecedented in terms of the complex-
ity and magnitude and pressured firms to be more innovative and proactive to business problems than
ever before.
E-commerce emerging from the Internet revolution changed the marketing principles traditionally held
by business firms. After the dust of dot-com bubble burst settled, the e-commerce sector has continued
to grow in both B2C and B2B sectors. Some pre-dot-com bust era companies like Amazon and eBay
showed resilience and continue to be market leaders today. According to the most recent report from the
U. S. Department of Commerce, the amount of e-commerce in the US has been increasing rapidly from
$35 billion in 2001 to $164 billion in 2010. While large firms have been the early adopters and benefi-
ciaries of most e-commerce innovations, an increasing number of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
(SMEs) are also rapidly adopting e-commerce to better serve customers, improve productivity, extend
a market base, and stay competitive.
Since the mid-2000s, social networking services such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter
have created massive online communities of people who are willing to communicate and collaborate
with each other. Social networking services have already had great impacts on the ways that people in-
teract and businesses operate. For example, Amazon created social networks around book readership as
a new initiative to attract potential book buyers. In addition to the social networking services, firms have
recently shown significant interest to online social media as a new marketing source such as context-
based advertising (e.g., Google AdSense), distributed file sharing (e.g., BitTorrent), and user-generated
content applications via wikis, media sharing, and social bookmarking.
Recently, advancements of wireless technologies have extended the reach of e-business to mobile
commerce environments. As wireless technologies advance, mobile commerce grows more ubiquitous
and sales of smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone and Samsung Galaxy explode. As a growing number of
customers utilize mobile devices to exchange information and to conduct business transactions, firms are
competing to provide the most value-added, innovative, convenient mobile services for their customers.
Although a large volume of literature is already available on e-business, e-services, and e-commerce,
many new ideas and applications are constantly emerging and provide potential opportunities and
challenges for further research. In this light, it is imperative for researchers to take stock of the new
knowledge in on e-business, e-services, and e-commerce, and stimulate further interest in this area.
Trends in E-Business, E-Services, and E-Commerce: Impact of Technology on Goods, Services, and
Business Transactions provides a reference source for researchers and industry practitioners to develop
xiii
their research ideas, theories, and practical experiences, and discusses challenges and opportunities
in the e-business, e-services, and e-commerce areas. This book is composed of 13 chapters in a wide
variety of topics such as social media, mobile commerce, Web personalization, and e-strategy. A brief
introduction of each chapter follows:
Chapter 1, “From Integration to Social Media: Understanding Electronic Marketplace,” by Kayvan
Miri Lavassani, Bahar Movahedi, and Vinod Kumar, discusses the importance of Electronic Marketplace
(EM) integration and presents market knowledge management for the effectiveness and efficiency of
EMs. EMs as trade tools have been the subject of several disruptive changes during the past few decades.
After explaining the concerns regarding EM integration at intra- and inter-organizational levels, this
chapter discusses the role of social media for EM and proposes a four level analytical tool for differen-
tiating B2B EMs.
Chapter 2, “Beneficial E-Personalization and Related Technological Innovations Applied to E-Tail-
ing,” by Alan D. Smith, discusses benefits and challenges generated by the numerous advancements in
electronic-personalization communication. Through multivariate analyses and data-reduction techniques,
the basic elements of e-personalization, namely online purchasing behaviors, personalized communica-
tions, information retrieval services, degree of personal Web presence, quality assurance of customer
service, and the promotion of customization services, were found to be conceptually and statistically
related to retailer benefits of e-personalization (increased buying and customer loyalty) from the view-
point of managers for a large goods and services chain store headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Chapter 3, “Mobile Commerce Adoption in Organizations: A Literature Review and Preliminary
Findings,” by Husam Alfahl, Louis Sanzogni, Luke Houghton, and Kuldeep Sandhu, reviews research
conducted on mobile commerce adoption in organizations. From the literature, a number of factors
from adoption theories such as the diffusion of innovation theory, the technology acceptance model,
and so forth are identified, analyzed, and tabulated together with a set of research propositions in order
to demonstrate areas in need of further research. This chapter proposes 15 adoption factors that may
affect the intention to adopt mobile commerce in organizations. These factors are categorized into three
groups, namely environmental and organizational, technological, and managerial and other factors, and
explored through a qualitative study to shed light on their veracity.
Chapter 4, “Online Brand Expansion towards the Offline Setting: Which Way to Go?” by Rafael
Bravo, Leif E. Hem, and José M. Pina, applies concepts and theories used in brand extensions and al-
liances literature to an offline setting. This chapter focuses on brands that are well known for its online
services. Brand extension and brand alliances are two possible strategies to expand the brand towards
different product categories. This chapter analyses the results of these strategies in terms of initial brand
image and perceived fit. An empirical study was conducted to 407 undergraduates in a Spanish university.
Chapter 5, “Examining the Impact of Web 2.0: Applications on Knowledge Management Perfor-
mance,” by Scott Buechler, Richard Hartshorne, and Haya Ajjan, empirically examines the impact of both
hedonic and utilitarian performance on the intention of knowledge workers to continue to use Web 2.0
applications and then investigates the influence of the continuance use decision on knowledge manage-
ment performance. The proposed model is tested using a survey of knowledge workers using Web 2.0
applications in their organizations. The results of the PLS analysis empirically validate the relationship
between antecedents, continuance use, and knowledge management performance.
xiv
Chapter 6, “An Exploratory Study of Customer Satisfaction in a Community Bank,” by Somjit Barat
and John E. Spillan, focuses on the physical and service attributes of consumer satisfaction in the bank-
ing business and takes a fresh look at how community banks can compete with larger banks in niche
service areas. The findings indicate that customer responses are mixed on these issues, which make
us strive to improve the service offerings. Interesting implications and ideas for further research also
emanate from the current study.
Chapter 7, “Collaborative Business Service Modelling and Improving: An Information-Driven
Approach,” by Thang Le Dinh and Thanh Thoa Pham Thi, aims at introducing an information-driven
approach that provides a conceptual foundation for modelling effectively and improving incrementally
collaborative business services. This chapter discusses the necessity for and principles of the information-
driven approach. Then it presents the business service foundation for the proposed approach that consists
of three dimensions: 1) service proposal, corresponding to the service value creation network level, 2)
service creation, corresponding to the service system level, and 3) service operation, corresponding to
the service level.
Chapter 8, “E-Strategy and Soft Landings for Franchising in Emerging Markets,” by Ye-Sho Chen, Ed
Watson, and Renato F. L. Azevedo, shows that e-business strategy plays an important role in growing and
nurturing a good relationship between the franchisor and the franchisee. The popularity of franchising
continues to increase, as the world witnesses an emergence of a new e-business model, Netchising, which
is the combination power of the Internet for global demand-and-supply processes and the international
franchising arrangement for local responsiveness. This chapter discusses how an effective e-strategy can
help a growing franchise go abroad to emerging markets through soft landings to reduce risks and costs.
Chapter 9, “Improving Network-based Marketing by Personalized Recommendation,” by Leila Esmaeili
and Golshan Assadat Afzali, proposes a group recommender system for marketing activities which is
based on data mining techniques, information theory, and user preferences. Social networks provide a
free and flexible networking environment for users and organizations. Organizations and companies are
trying to attract potential and actual customers via social networks. The proposed group recommender
system will support users who are not in relation with the others or their activity history is not available.
The results show the superiority of the proposed model.
Chapter 10, “Internet Incidence on SME’s Sales: A Propensity Score Matching Analysis,” by María
Verónica Alderete, attempts to determine how much is the “bonus” or “prize” to the sales per worker of
Internet-using firms compared to not Internet-using firms. This chapter first presents a binary logit model,
in which the dependent variable is a dichotomous variable equal to 1 if the firm adopted Internet and 0
otherwise, to evaluate the factors that influence a firm’s probability of adopting Internet. A Propensity
Score Matching (PSM) model is then used to assess the impact of using Internet on the sales per worker.
The authors find statistically significant differences in the sales average between firms that are similar
in many dimensions such as location, size, and sales market except for the Internet adoption decision.
Chapter 11, “An Update on the Use of Facebook as a Marketing Tool by Private Educational Institu-
tions in Singapore,” by H.K. Leng, is an update on an earlier paper which examined the use of Facebook
as a marketing tool by private educational institutions offering degree programmes in Singapore. The
findings in the earlier paper suggested that marketing on social network sites remained in its infancy. In
this update, it was found that three years later, there has been an increase in the use of social network
sites by educational institutes in Singapore. There is also evidence that there is greater engagement and
the building of a virtual community on the social network sites. This suggests that the use of social net-
xv
work sites as a marketing tool by educational institutes in Singapore is maturing as the organisations are
beginning to understand how to leverage on social network sites to market themselves more effectively.
Chapter 12, “Online Corporate Reputation Management and IT: From Reactive to Proactive Organi-
zations,” by Alberto Francesconi and Claudia Dossena, focuses on “online corporate reputation” and the
exploitation of IT (Online Reputation Management Systems) to support the related management practices.
According to the resource-based view, the Corporate Reputation (CR) is seen as a core resource and a
major factor in gaining competitive advantage. Thanks to the development of Web-based technologies,
stakeholders can easily spread their own perspective about an organization, its products, services, brands,
members, and so forth, affecting its online CR. Taking a pragmatic approach, this chapter develops a
case study based on the experience developed by an Italian leading e-service provider.
Chapter 13, “A Case Study for Business Integration as a Service” by Victor Chang, presents Busi-
ness Integration as a Service (BIaaS) to allow two services to work together in the Cloud to achieve a
streamline process. This chapter illustrates this integration using two services: Return on Investment
(ROI) Measurement as a Service (RMaaS) and Risk Analysis as a Service (RAaaS) in the case study
at the University of Southampton. The case study demonstrates the cost-savings and the risk analysis
achieved, so two services can work as a single service. Different types of risks associated with Cloud
adoption can be calculated easily, rapidly and accurately with the use of BIaaS. Implementation of BIaaS
in other organisations is also discussed.
Trends in E-Business, E-Services, and E-Commerce: Impact of Technology on Goods, Services, and
Business Transactions is an excellent collection of the latest research and practices associated with theories,
user behaviors, and practices. As leading experts in the e-business and e-services area, the contributors
did an outstanding job of providing our readers with extensive coverage of the most important research
topics – new concepts, management strategies, online user behavior, social media usage, and trends.
The projected audience includes researchers, e-business developers, mobile services providers, social
media managers, IT managers, professors, and undergraduate/graduate students in various academic
disciplines. I expect this book to shed new insights for researchers, educators, and practitioners to better
understand the important issues of e-business research and technologies.
In Lee
xvi
Acknowledgment
I sincerely thank Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, Jan Travers, and other members of the IGI Global staff, whose
support throughout the whole process from the inception of the initial idea to the final publication has
been invaluable. I also would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all authors for their invaluable
contributions and collaboration.
In Lee
xvii
Introduction
LEVERAGING SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL SHOPPING

FOR BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
In the early 1990s, e-business ushered in what is now called “the digital economy.” It revolutionized the
process of buying, selling, and exchanging products and services, and spawned a host of business and
technological innovations. As globalization and competition pose new opportunities and challenges,
firms face increased pressures from stakeholders to create e-business values. They are attempting to
find which e-business models and applications will contribute effectively to their sustainability, growth,
and innovation. Innovations in technology in the e-business area have constantly encouraged firms to
improve existing business processes and develop new business models and applications.
Since the late 2000s, social media has paved new ways of accessing customers for businesses and
conducting business activities. Social media, also called Web 2.0, represents a variety of dynamic and
community-based web initiatives that place value on the power of distributed knowledge, leverage data,
and provide users with rich multimedia experiences (O’Reilly, 2005). Online social networking services
such as MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn provide firms with significant business building communities
based on interests and relationships. As a growing number of customers utilize social media to exchange
information and to conduct business transactions, firms are competing to provide the most value-added,
innovative, convenient e-services for their customers.
Recently, advancements of social media have extended the reach of e-business to social commerce.
Social commerce enabled by social media has provided firms with new ways of approaching, acquiring,
and retaining customers with the use of social media. With the widespread adoption of social media by
customers, businesses must find ways to capitalize on the social commerce to stay competitive in the
global economy. For traditional businesses, investment in social commerce is on the rise. According to
a recent IBM survey of more than 1,100 businesses around the world (CIO, 2012), forty-six percent of
the businesses surveyed increases in their investments in social commerce in 2012, and sixty-two percent
planned to increase their investments in social commerce in the next three years. According this survey,
most firms are convinced that social commerce is enhancing their business value.
Although a large volume of literature is already available on social media and social shopping, many
new ideas and applications are constantly emerging and provide potential opportunities and challenges
for further research. This preface reviews the literature on social media and social shopping to understand
what has been studied, presents a framework of emerging social media and social shopping business
models, and discusses challenges and opportunities.
xviii
SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS IMPACT ON BUSINESS
Many traditional businesses integrate a variety of social media tools into their core business processes to
achieve competitive advantage. High-profile companies, from Siemens to Lockheed Martin to Motorola
to Cisco, have all adopted social media tools, and claim to derive strong competitive advantages from it.
Companies are beginning to capitalize on social media tools in a variety of ways. Many companies are
expanding social media efforts to capture customer data and leverage it to generate instantaneous, custom-
tailored customer experiences (Bughin et al., 2008). For example, Amazon uses data generated from site
visitors in order to provide targeted product suggestions to other visitors. For a potential purchaser who
is interested in a certain product, Amazon lists products that other purchasers of the same product also
looked at. Netflix aggregates and analyzes subscribers’ movie preferences in order to provide accurate
online movie recommendations. Businesses leverage social media technologies in order to dynamically
collaborate with customers and partners in efforts to generate new design innovations (Brown, 2008).
The following introduces four types of social media tools.
Social Networking Services
Many companies leverage their own private internal social networking services (SNS) to increase pro-
ductivity in the workplace. SNS facilitate recruiting and connecting potential contributors for distributed
innovation processes. As recruiting tools, SNS enable recruiters to view the manner in which candidates
behave in an online setting and the type of people they socialize with. Job seekers use SNS to network
with professionals for internship and job opportunities. Companies can also use SNS to engage in direct
market research and maintain a positive relationship with customers. LinkedIn’s new service, Company
Groups, allows a company’s employees to participate in a single internal web forum where they can talk
to one another, share ideas, and ask company-related questions.
Collaborative Platform
Social media has also led to a collaborative platform. As a collaborative platform, prediction market
tools can help aggregate a vast amount of information from employees within organizations to better
guide company actions. An example of this is the sales forecast at HP through prediction markets (Chen
& Plott, 2002). HP pioneered prediction markets in sales forecasting and expanded it to several business
units. HP is working towards a commercial launch of the implementation of it as a product.
Procter & Gamble, through its ‘Connect and Develop’ platform opened to inputs from company
alumni, current employees, and even customers, has successfully secured a large stream of new product
innovations (Huston & Sakkab, 2006). While Procter & Gamble’s best innovations had come from con-
necting ideas across internal businesses, after studying the performance of a small number of products
they had acquired from external sources, they realized that external connections could produce highly
profitable innovations as well. Its ‘Connect and Develop’ platform taps into the creative thinking of
inventors and others on the outside would.
For businesses, wikis serve as an excellent collaborative platform for collective intelligence and can
facilitate innovations (Tapscott & Williams, 2007). Internal corporate wikis can be used as a collective
intelligence tool to tap the expertise of a large group. For example, Nokia has been using internal wikis
for engineers to solve product-design problems. Internal wikis are increasingly used by companies such
xix
as Adobe Systems, Amazon.com, Disney, Intel, Pixar, and Microsoft. External corporate wikis enable
companies to have the opportunity to derive value from the mass collaboration of the public that par-
ticipates in wikis. By allowing consumers to contribute ideas revolving around the company’s products,
the company can not only develop a core consumer base, but can also create values for any consumer
that can benefit from the collaborative works. Sun Microsystems’ Sun Wikis is a directory of over 800
wiki spaces (as of June 2011) where contributors inside and outside of Sun Microsystems can share
information with each other and contribute ideas to the wikis.
Blogs
Blogs are online journals that are characterized by short entries and regular updates. Blogs are inherently
flexible and can be used for a variety of purposes, ranging from personal opinions of the contributor to
knowledge management initiatives and customer relation tools. The publication of a blog enables the
company to interact directly with consumers. Leading companies like Boeing, IBM, Accenture, South-
west Airlines, and GE are all early adopters of corporate blogs. While the blog can be used for public
relations, it can also be used to promote new products and receive consumer feedback to products and
services. Senior management can also utilize internal and external blogs to make announcements and
seek inputs from various user groups. Internal corporate blogs offer a communication channel for indi-
vidual employees to express themselves, share information, and discuss ideas with each other. Internal
blog sites can be used as an ongoing information and knowledge repository to store key information,
expert knowledge and experience, and as a connection point among employees. Personal or public blog
sites are used to host blogs and the posted messages can be distributed to other sites or readers via RSS.
Examples include political blog sites, such as HuffingtonPost.com, consumer electronics blog sites, such
as engadget.com, and entertainment blog sites, such as perezhilton.com.
Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking, also called folksonomies, has become part of social media application and an im-
portant alternative to search engines or other instruments for navigating the web. An empirical analysis
of the complex dynamics of social bookmarking has shown that a consensus around stable distributions
and shared vocabularies emerge, even in the absence of a centrally controlled vocabulary (Halpin et al.,
2007). Companies are increasingly using photo sharing like Flickr and tagging sites like Delicious.com
to promote new products and services and also to share photos of major company events with existing
customers, employees, and potential customers.
SOCIAL MEDIA-BASED BUSINESS MODELS
Social media is moving beyond the early diffusion stage and best practices emerge. Many new pure-play
social media business models arise by leveraging social media such as wikis and blogs. In addition,
bricks-and-clicks organizations try to leverage social media to improve their business processes. Orga-
nizations must understand the impacts of social media on their existing business model in order to be
competitive in this fast-paced environment. In this section, we investigate the emergence of new social
media-based business models in which the use of social media is the primary driver of revenue and
corporate existence. Based on the analysis of popular social media-based organizations, we identified
the following six social media-based business models.
xx
Broad Online Community: A broad online community is an electronically supported social network of
a wide range of user groups. It can be seen as a group of people who have regular social interaction but
without any specific idiosyncratic group characteristics. The broad online community allows individuals
to form or maintain online social connections and share their skills, talents, knowledge, and/or prefer-
ences with other members. The viability of this community model is based on user loyalty, since users
need to invest both time and emotion to the community. Revenue can come from the sale of products,
information services and/or advertising. A large community may expect revenue from subscriptions for
premium services. Examples include Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, and Friendster.
Focused Online Community: A focused online community is a niche/specialty online community
dedicated to people with a common interests and needs such as professions or hobbies. One of the major
distinctions is in professional and private users (e.g., business social network services as LinkedIn and
private social networking services as Blabkplanet targeted at African American users). Users add their
profile and portfolio to the community and become part of a common interest such as a problem, task,
hobby, or business. Revenue can be based on the sale of specialty advertising, premium services, specialty-
related products and services or contributions. Shopping communities bring like-minded people together
to discuss, share, and shop. Using the wisdom of crowds, users communicate and aggregate information
about products, prices, and promotions. An example of a focused online community is an Internet car
forum, such as NASIOC (North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club, forums.nasioc.com). In this
forum, members of the community can gather to share information such as car pricing, purchasing tips,
technical details/troubleshooting, and events the community may hold in their region. They can also post
products for sale or trade with other members. Like most focused online communities, forums.nasioc.
com is funded through banner advertisements, as well as sponsors who sell their products on the forum.
Content Intermediary: Content intermediaries are businesses that function as a third party between
content generators and content users. Sometimes, users serve as both content generators and content us-
ers. Content intermediaries aggregate content and deliver it to users. In addition to text content, content
generators often contribute to the sites with video, audio, or other types of rich media. Product reviews,
comments, recommendations, and news or information posted on the sites represent high quality market
information and an unbiased customer voice. Three types of content intermediaries are
1. Blog sites,
2. Collective intelligence sites, and
3. Content aggregating/sharing sites.
As users contribute new content to the web, the web of connections and associations among users
grows stronger as a result of their collective activities. Content intermediaries depend on massive user
participation and collaboration via the web. Innovative web business models such as social bookmarking
and online encyclopedias take advantage of the network effects: the more people participate in generat-
ing and refining content, the more useful they become to the users. The ease of content generation and
the speed of content sharing are critical to the success of content intermediaries. The online reputa-
tion systems are an example of an innovative content intermediary. The online reputation systems are
based on intelligence of crowds. People provide opinions of the products, services, or users they have
experienced in the form of scores, rankings, and comments. The reputation systems collect and publish
xxi
reputation scores and comments to a community or general public. While most reputation systems are
product review systems, the objects of the reputation system used by eBay are transaction participants
who provide ratings of the transaction party after they conduct a transaction. eBay’s reputation system
is designed to reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. Examples of collective intelligence sites
include online encyclopedias, such as Wikipedia, social bookmarking/tagging sites, such as del.icio.us
and Digg, and online reputation systems, such as Epinions, Bizrate, and Yelp.
Content gathering/sharing sites gather web content (and/or sometimes applications) from users. The
value of the sites depends on the quality and quantity of the content contributed by the users. This con-
tent is in the form of video, audio, music, images, and text. Compared to the blog sites, the journalistic
function is limited. Examples include video-sharing sites, such as YouTube, event sharing sites, such as
Upcoming, and photo publishing/sharing sites, such as Flickr.
Virtual World: Virtual worlds are persistent virtual reality spaces (Schroeder, 2008). Virtual world
enables users to interact with each other without geographical barriers. In virtual worlds or games, it
is possible for users to interact using avatars. Avatars are the representations of users in virtual worlds,
often graphically displayed as 3-dimensional characters and completely customized according to the
user’s preferences. These worlds are available 24/7 - users can explore, socialize, and solve collabora-
tive challenges. Virtual world technologies have affected education, information, and gaming industries.
From a marketing perspective, virtual worlds create opportunities for a new form of commerce - virtual
or v-commerce (Nasco, Boostrom Jr., & Coker, 2010). V-commerce is an alternative and/or supplement
to traditional forms of commerce. Virtual commerce is a viable type of commerce in which products are
created with infinite virtual resources and exchanged for real world money.
One of the more successful virtual worlds is 3-dimensional Second Life, created by Linden Lab in
2003. Avatars are central to the way that users interact with people and objects in virtual spaces. Second
Life centers on socializing within communities, the sale and resale of goods, and the advancement of
its virtual economy. Virtual characters known as Residents run businesses, own land, travel, and buy
and sell goods and services with the Linden Dollar. Virtual worlds represent a significant social media
business model due to its business potential. Other virtual worlds include Smallworlds, Zwinktopia,
ActiveWorlds, and Twinity.
Shared Social Media Services: Shared Social Media Services facilitate the growth of social media
populations by providing sharable services in the form of software and hardware. Using the shared social
media services, users/groups can develop their own social media applications at minimum costs and
technical skills. For example, users/groups may set up their own wiki sites using wiki development tools
provided by wiki hosting sites such as Wikispaces and WordPress. WordPress is a popular blog hosting
site available to individuals and firms. The revenue sources include advertising, premium services, and
subscription fees. Examples of shared social media services include social networking host services for
private specialty social networking, mashup platform vendors, Widgets, wiki host services, Google apps
for social networking and collaborations, blog host services, and collaborative host services.
Social Shopping: Taking advantage of social media’s user participation and social networking capa-
bilities, social shopping intermediaries such as Groupon and LivingSocial have emerged as a promising
online intermediary between merchants and consumers by offering group discount deals to price sensi-
tive customers. Merchant reputation sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Angie’s List enable consumers
to generate online product reviews, merchant reviews, blogs, and social tagging. Social merchants use
social shopping intermediaries to promote their products or services at large discount prices.
xxii
SOCIAL MEDIA AND CONSUMER INFORMATION SHARING
Stigler (1961) observed that the one-price market will occur only where the cost of information about
the prices offered by buyers and sellers is zero. In most situations information is scarce and costly to
obtain, and therefore it can be thought of as an economic good. Since then, consumers’ information
search behavior has been explained in terms of the costs and benefits associated with a search (Foster
& Lin, 2010). Once the consumer has identified a problem, he/she searches for information on products
and services that can solve that problem. The kinds of information sought by online consumers typically
relate to product/service and merchant reputation in terms of specification, price, and quality standards,
and expert and consumer opinions and ratings.
A growing number of online retailers add a customer review function on their website in order to
enrich their consumers’ shopping experience. Reviews written by consumers are perceived to be less
biased than the information provided by advertisers and can provide information that enhances the
credibility of what is already available from retailers and manufacturers. The validity of reviews can
be further enhanced by providing a function for other consumers to rate the usefulness of the particular
reviews. Three types of consumer reviews are widely used:
1. Product/service reviews,
2. Content reviews, and
3. Merchant reviews.
Table 1 summarizes these three types of consumer reviews.
5. SOCIAL SHOPPING
Social shopping brings buyers and sellers together in e-commerce where shoppers’ social networking
facilitates the shopping activities. Social shopping attempts use technology to mimic the social interac-
tions found in physical malls and stores. Social shopping can largely be divided into two categories:
1. Group shopping sites and

2. Social shopping marketplaces.
Group shopping sites group individual consumers to purchase products and services together from
merchants at discount prices. Examples include Groupon, Gilt City, LivingSocial, and BuyWithMe.
Social shopping marketplaces bring social shopping sites, merchants, and consumers together to connect
and transact. The marketplace brings together independent buyers and sellers and creates a forum for
them to conduct business transactions. Examples include Sttorenvy and Jasmere. Social shopping also
encourages people to exchange information about products and services. The revenue sources include
sales commission and advertising. Social shopping sites develop Android and iPhone-based mobile apps
to provide location-based services.
The success of the social shopping sites depends on the customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, part-
ner management, and quality policy, including refund policy. As the number of the social shopping sites
grows rapidly, the competition intensifies and social shoppers’ complaints increase about overbooking,
xxiii
Table 1. Three types of consumer reviews
Type of Consumer Review Description Example Sites

Product/service reviews Normally focus on the functionalities and the Epinions and Bizrate (http://www.bizrate.com/).
utility of a product and service (e.g. its us-
ability, efficiency, quality, design, reliability,
etc.).
Content reviews Share opinions on the content of a product Music Emissions (http://www.musicemissions.
such as a book, music, or movie. com).
Merchant reviews Often used as a mechanism to establish trust Froogle (http://www.froogle.com) and Yelp
between consumers and merchants and to as- (http://www.yelp.com).
certain a sense of product and service quality
of the merchant.
poor product/service quality, and stockout. Participating companies usually pay a high rate of commis-
sion to social shopping sites. Many social shoppers are bargain hunters.
Theoretical Perspectives on Social Shopping
Among the theories relevant to the growth of social shopping, five theoretical perspectives are reviewed
in the following: information asymmetry, price discrimination, shopper orientation, advertising, and
network externality.
Information asymmetry is the difference in the information between two parties (Ba & Pavlou, 2002).
Information asymmetry occurs in transactions where one party has more or better information than the
other. Information asymmetry may give rise to opportunistic behavior such as misrepresentation of product
quality (Akerlof, 1970). Since consumers usually cannot determine the quality of a product/service prior
to consumption, merchants may attempt to defraud consumers of experience goods and services, such as
wine, healthcare services, and software. In cases of information asymmetry, it is natural for consumers to
assume that whatever the merchant is offering, it must be that the merchant is still selling the product for
more than it is worth. Thus, many consumers may even avoid purchasing the product/service altogether.
Online intermediaries are known to decrease information asymmetry between merchants and consum-
ers, since online intermediaries have expert knowledge on products (Duan, 2010). As an extension of
online intermediaries, social intermediaries can reduce the information asymmetry between merchants
and consumers. Social intermediaries make efforts to filter out misrepresented information and maintain
information quality. Social intermediaries allow consumers to acquire information otherwise unavailable,
such as information on merchant reputation. Social networking services, online discussion forums, and
merchant reputation sites allow consumers to conduct pre-purchase research and help reduce the infor-
mation asymmetry between merchants and consumers. In this way, products and services listed on social
shopping sites turn into a search good with features and characteristics easily evaluated before purchase.
Price discrimination is a marketing method of differentiating price sensitive consumer groups from
less sensitive customer groups and offering different prices for the products and services to each group.
Price discrimination is common in practice, and has received careful analysis in the field of economics
(Lewis & Sappington, 1994). Price discrimination allows firms to increase their revenue above what
may be obtained from uniform pricing (Leslie, 2004) by reaching new customers who were not previ-
ously buying the product. However, since there is a difficulty in differentiating between loyal and new
customers, social shopping can be used as a means of inducing voluntary price discrimination (Ben-
Zion, Hibshoosh, & Spiegel, 1999).
xxiv
Under the social shopping environment, the merchant’s incentive and ability to discriminate price
will continue to grow. Social intermediaries naturally identify price sensitive groups. Members of the
social shopping sites signal their price sensitivity voluntarily when they apply for the membership and
actually purchase the discount deals. An individual-level analysis of the frequency and size of discount
deals can further identify the core price sensitive groups. It is expected that a certain percentage of
social shoppers become repeat customers if the product or service satisfies them, while others remain
in the same price-sensitive group regardless of their satisfaction. However, it would be challenging to
accurately estimate the percentage of social shoppers who will eventually become repeat customers.
Shopping orientation has been widely studied in marketing. Among shopping orientation studies,
Stone (1954) is the first researcher who offered taxonomy on shopping orientation. He suggested that
as consumers gain experience in the marketplace, a fractionization of shopping orientation evolves, and
developed four categories of shoppers: economic, personalizing, ethical and apathetic shoppers. Subse-
quent studies find that shopping behavior is motivated by a range of psychosocial needs that go beyond
the acquisition of products and services (Arnold & Reynolds, 2003; Tauber, 1972; Westbrook & Black,
1985). Psychographics-based shopping orientations classify shoppers into either social shoppers, qual-
ity shoppers, problem-solving shoppers, psycho-socializing shoppers, or brand-name shoppers (Darden
& Reynolds, 1971; Darden & Ashton, 1974-75; Moschis, 1976). “Psychosocializing” shoppers have
affiliation and social interaction as shopping motivations (Tauber, 1972; Westbrook & Black, 1985).
Grounded in McGuire’s (1974) collection of affiliation theories of human motivation, social shop-
pers espouse altruism, cohesiveness, pursuit of acceptance, and the desire for affection in interpersonal
relationships (Arnold & Reynolds, 2003; McGuire, 1976; Westbrook & Black, 1985). Tauber (1972)
suggests that the social motives of shopping include the needs for social experiences, communication
with others having similar interests, peer group attractions, obtaining status and authority, and gaining
pleasure from bargaining and negotiation. Similarly, Arnold and Reynolds (2003) identify social shop-
ping as one of six broad categories of hedonic shopping motivations and explain the motive of social
shopping is enjoyment of shopping with friends and family, socializing while shopping, and bonding with
others while shopping. Social shoppers report their primary shopping motivations to be social, habitual,
brand-loyal, and utilitarian with the least value attached to gratification seeking. These shoppers appear
to see shopping as a leisure activity (Martin & Mason, 1987), fulfilling some important role in family
and social life which goes beyond the traditional shopping activities.
Advertising is an important part of the business logic of social intermediaries. The major revenue
sources of social intermediaries are commission and advertising fees paid by the participating merchants.
Traditional approaches to advertising implicitly assume that advertising is something the firm does to
attract the consumer (Pavlou & Stewart, 2000). Online advertising is typically a form of interactive
advertising which extends the traditional advertising. In web-based interactive advertising, the reasons
consumers seek, select, use, and respond to information are critical for understanding and designing ef-
fective advertising (Pavlou & Stewart, 2000). A majority of studies attempt to identify the relationship
between the characteristics of online advertising and consumers’ behavioral responses (Briggs & Hollis,
1997; Cho, 2003; Eighmey, 1997; Yoo & Kim, 2005).
For merchants, social shopping sites can complement traditional advertising media such as news-
paper, magazine, radio, and TV. Social intermediaries inform consumers of a merchant’s existence
and the availability of the products/services, increase brand awareness, and ascertain the quality of the
merchant. Social intermediaries employ a variety of advertising schemes. Social shopping promotes
viral marketing via social networks and referrals. To maximize the effect of viral marketing, the time
xxv
limits and quantity thresholds of the deals are enforced. E-mails are sent to subscribers for ‘deals of
the day’ and other special promotions. A variety of deals are posted on social shopping sites in visually
stimulating ways to grab the attention of potential customers, and possibly lead to actual purchases. All
of these real-time interactive characteristics of social shopping advertising go beyond the capability of
traditional advertising.
Empirical data show that coupon expiration date can affect coupon profitability (Krishna & Zhang,
1999). An increased expiration date for a product tends to increase the coupon redemption rate for the
product and profitability. The duration of promotion is another important decision variable for profit
generation. According to a study that investigates the effects of length, frequency and pod placement on
advertising recall, the length and frequency of advertising positively and significantly influence adver-
tisement recall (Newell & Henderson, 1998).
Network externality theory was used to explain the increased value of telecommunication adoption
by a large number of subscribers in the 1970s (Rohlfs, 1974), and the theory has been developed and
refined over time to model many organizational technology adoption decisions (Economides, 1996).
Network externality describes the increase in the value of a product or service to a user, not because
of the inherent quality of the product or service, but because of the increasing numbers of other users
adopting it (Katz & Shapiro, 1985). The basic premises of the theory are 1) that the value to a user from
joining the network is an increasing function of the total number of users who join the network, 2) that
users perceive this value and 3) that they make their joining decision based on this perceived value. So-
cial networking services such as Facebook and LinkedIn are good examples of the network externality,
since the more members that join those services, the more beneficial the services will be to the members.
Network externality applies to social shopping for both merchants and consumers. Merchants have
the incentive of using social shopping sites that have many members, and members have the incentive of
using a social shopping site where many merchants are providing deals. As the size of the social shop-
ping site increases, benefits to both merchants and consumers grow significantly because they have a
better chance of passing the threshold sales quantity, enjoying a variety of deals, and acquiring accurate
information on products/services. Since social intermediaries are a relatively new business model, few
studies on network externality of social shopping exist.
CONCLUSION
In this study, we discussed four types of social media tools including social networking services, col-
laborative platform, blogs, and social bookmarking. We also identified six social media-based business
models:
1. Broad online communities,

2. Focused online communities,
3. Content intermediaries,
4. Virtual worlds,
5. Shared social media services, and
6. Social shopping.
xxvi
These social media-based business models continue to grow in size and number through the interac-
tion with individual users and business customers.
We also presented five theoretical perspectives relevant to the growth of social shopping: informa-
tion asymmetry, price discrimination, shopper orientation, advertising, and network externality. The
analysis of social shopping is critical to merchants due to its potentially great impacts. As more and
more merchants use social intermediaries as an alternative sales channel, the effectiveness of social
shopping becomes crucial for both customers and merchants. These theoretical perspectives allow social
intermediaries to understand the current status of social shopping and to make informed decisions on
the ways of engaging in social shopping.
In Lee
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Another random document with
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The weeks passed, and our preparations for departure to England
proceeded at the soberest pace. In England we were going to stay with my
mother’s brother, a saintly man of some little property who lived a retired
life in London, and whose heir I would in due course be, since he was
himself without wife or children.
My father, never notable for the agreeable qualities of discretion and
reticence, soon spread about the report of his discovery of the green
carnation. He could not resist boasting of it in his cups, of the formula with
which he could always make them, of the fortune he must inevitably make.
Nor did he hesitate to taunt the men of the valley, they who came of
generations of flower-growers, with his own success in an occupation
which, he said, he had never undertaken but at a woman’s persuasion, since
it could be regarded as manly only by those who would describe as manly
the painted face of a Circassian eunuch. Thus he would taunt them,
laughing me to scorn when I ventured to point out that even worms will
turn and cravens conspire. Woe and woe to the dour and high-handed in a
world of polity, for their fate shall surely find them out!
One day, having been to the village to procure some yeast for the making
of a yaourt or yawort, which is that same Bulgarian “sour milk” so strongly
recommended to Anglo-Saxon digestions, I was startled, as I walked up the
path to the door, by the bruit of loud rough voices. Only too soon was my
fear turned to horror. One of the voices was my father’s, arrogant and harsh
as only his could be, with a sneer like a snake running through it. The other
I could not recognise, but could hear only too well that it had not the soft
accents of the men of the valley; and when, afraid to enter, I peered in
through the window, I saw my father in violent altercation with a man his
equal in stature and demeanour—another bearded giant, as fair as my father
was dark, and with the livid eyes of a wolf.
What was my horror on recognising him as Michaelis the comitadji, the
notorious and brutal Michaelis of the hills. The Michaelises and the
Samsonovitch Samsonoffs had always been the equal kings of the banditti
and, in many a fight between Christian and Turk, the equal champions of
the Cross against the Crescent. And now, as I could hear through the
window, the last of the Michaelises was asking of the last of the Samsonoffs
some of his great wealth, that he might arm and munition his troop to the
latest mode.
My father threw back his head and laughed. But his laugh had cost him
dear had I not screamed a warning, for the Michaelis with the wolfish eyes
had raised a broad knife. My father leapt to one side, and taking up the first
thing that came to hand, a heavy bottle of mastique, crashed it down like an
axe on the fair giant’s head; and then, without so much as a glance at the
unconscious man, and massive though the Michaelis was, slung him over
his shoulder, strode out of the house and garden and flung him into the
middle of the roadway, where he lay for long moaning savagely with the
pain of his broken head. I had gone to the aid of the wretch, but my father
would not let me, saying that no Michaelis ever yet died of a slap on the
crown and that a little blood-letting would clear the man’s mind of his
boyish fancies. Ah, if it had!
It was at a late hour of the very next night—for since my mother’s death
my father would loiter in the taverns until all hours—that his hoarse voice
roused me from my sleep; and on descending I found him raging about the
kitchen like a wounded tiger, his clothes in disorder and showing grim dark
stains that, as I clung to him, foully wetted my hands. I prayed him, in an
access of terror, to tell me he was not hurt, for what other protection than
him had I in that murderous land?
“I am not hurt, child,” he growled impatiently. “But I have been driven
to hurt some so that they can never again feel pain.”
They had ambushed him, the cowards, as he came home through the
wood—as though a hundred of those maggots of the valley could slay a
Samsonovitch Samsonoff! My father had caught the last of them by the
throat, and the trembling coward had saved himself by confessing the plot.
It appeared that it was they who had persuaded the Michaelis to visit us the
day before, alluring his fancy with tales of the discovery of the carnation
and of the great riches the Samsonoff had concealed about the house. And
the Michaelis had come to our house not for part of my father’s wealth but
for all he could find, as also for the secret of the carnation, which he might
sell at a great price to some Jew in Sofia—he had come to kill my father!
“And I, like a fool,” cried my father, “only broke the skin of his wolfish
head! Girl, we must be off at once! I have not lived in unwilling peace all
these years to die like a rat; and now that these weak idiots have failed to
kill me Michaelis and his troop will surround the house, and who shall
escape the wolves of the hills? Now linger not for your clothes and fineries.
Grigory Eshekovitch has horses for us at the edge of the wood, and we can
make Philippopolis by the morning. Here is all our money in notes. Take
them, so that you will be provided for should these scum get me. And the
formula—take care of the formula, child, for that is your fortune! Should I
have to stay behind, your mother’s brother in England is a good man and
will probably not rob you of more than half the profits of it.”
And so we came to leave our beloved home, stealing like thieves through
the darkness of a moonless night. How shall I ever forget those desperate
moments! Our farm lay far from any other habitation, and a long sloping
lane joined our pastures to the extensive Karaloff Wood, a wood always
evoked by Bulgarian poets of past centuries as the home of vampires and
the kennel of the hounds of hell.
There, at its borders, Grigory Eshekovitch, a homely man devoted to our
interests, awaited us with two horses; and, although I could not see his face
in the darkness, I could imagine by the tremor of his never very assured
voice how pallid, indeed green, it must have been; for poor Grigory
Eshekovitch suffered from some internal affection which had the effect of
establishing his complexion very uncertainly.
“Have you seen anyone in the wood?” my father asked him.
“No, but I have heard noises,” Grigory Eshekovitch trembled.
“Bah!” growled my father. “That was the chattering of your own
miserable teeth.”
I wonder what has happened to poor Grigory Eshekovitch, whether he
survived that hideous night. We left him there, a trembling figure on the
borders of the wood, while we put our horses into the heart of that darkness;
and I tried to find solace in our desperate situation by looking forward to
the safety and comfort of our approaching life in England. Little I knew that
I was to suffer such agonies of fear in this huge city that I would wish
myself back in the land of wolves!
My dreams were shattered by a low growl from my father, and we pulled
up our horses, listening intently. By this time we were about half-way
through the wood; and had we not known the place by heart we had long
since lost our way, for the curtain of leaves between us and the faint light of
the stars made the place so black that we could not even see the faintest
glimmer of each other. At last my father whispered that it was all right, and
we were in the act of spurring our tired horses for the last dash through the
wood when torches flamed on all sides and we stood as in the tortured light
of a crypt in moonlight.
“Samson Samsonovitch,” cried a hoarse voice, and like a stab at my
heart I knew it for the voice of the Michaelis, “we hope your sins are not
too heavy, for your time has come.”
It ill becomes a girl to boast of her parent; but shall I neglect to mention
the stern fortitude, the patriarchal resignation, the monumental bravery, of
my father, how he sat his horse still as a rock in a tempest and only his lips
moved in a gentle whisper to me. “Child, save yourself,” said he, and that
was his farewell. “I command you to go—to save yourself and my secret
from these hounds. Maybe I too will get through. God is as good to us as
we deserve. Head right through them. Their aim, between you and me, will
be so unsure that we might both escape. Go, and God go with you!”
Can you ask me to remember the details of the awful moment? The
darkness, the flaming torches, the hoarse cries of the bandits as they rode in
on us, my father’s great courage—all these combined to produce in me a
state for which the word “terror” seems altogether too homely. Perhaps I
should not have left my father. Perhaps I should have died with him. I did
not know what I was doing. Blindly as in a nightmare I spurred my horse
midway between two moving torches. The horse, startled already, flew
madly as the wind. Cries, curses, shots seemed to sweep about me, envelop
me, but terror lent wings to my horse, and the shots and shouts faded behind
me as phantoms might fade in a furious wind. Last of all came a fearful
fusillade of shots, then a silence broken only by the harsh rustle of the
bracken under my horse, which, with the livid intelligence of fear, did not
stop before we reached Philippopolis in the dawn.
I was never to see my father again. Until noon of the next day I sat
anxiously in the only decent inn of the ancient town, praying that some act
of Providence had come to his aid and that he might at any moment appear;
when, from a loquacious person, who did not know my name, I heard that
the last of the Samsonoffs had that morning been found in Karaloff Wood
nailed to a tree-trunk with eighteen bullet wounds in his body.
I will spare you my reflections on the pass in which I then found myself.
No young girl was ever so completely alone as she who sat the day through
in the parlour of the Bulgarian inn, trying to summon the energy with which
to arrange for her long journey on the Orient Express to England.
Arrived in London, I at once set out to my uncle’s house in Golgotha
Road, Golders Green. I was a little surprised that he had not met me at the
station, for I had warned him of my arrival by telegram; but, knowing he
was a gentleman of particular though agreeable habits, it was with a
sufficiently good heart that I rang the bell of his tall gloomy house, which
stood at the end of a genteel street of exactly similar houses.
Allow me, if you please, to hurry over the relation of my further
misfortunes. My uncle had died of a clot of blood on the heart a week
before my arrival. His property he had, of course, left to me; and I could
instantly take possession of his house in Golgotha Road. I was utterly alone.
That was four weeks ago. Though entirely without friends or
acquaintance—for my uncle’s lawyer, Mr. Tarbold, was a man who bore his
own lack of easy conversation and human sympathy with a resigned
fortitude worthy of more wretched sorrows—I passed the first two weeks
pleasantly enough in arranging the house to my taste, in engaging a
housekeeper and training her to my ways, and in wondering how I must
proceed as regards the patenting and exploiting of the carnation, the
formula for which I kept locked in a secret drawer of my toilet-table.
At the end of three weeks—one week ago—my housekeeper gave me
notice of her instant departure, saying that no consideration would persuade
her to spend another night in the house. She was, it seemed, psychic, and
the atmosphere of the house, which was certainly oppressive, weighed
heavily on her mind. She had heard noises in the night, she affirmed, and
also spoke indignantly of an unpleasant smell in the basement of the house,
a musty smell which she for one made no bones of recognising as of a
graveyard consistency; and if she did not know a graveyard smell, she
asked, from one of decent origins, who did, for she had buried three
husbands?
Of course I laughed at her tremors, for I am not naturally of a nervous
temper; and when she insisted on leaving that very day I was not at all
disturbed. Nor did I instantly make enquiries for another woman, for I could
very well manage by myself; and the work of the house, I thought, must
help to fill in the awful spaces made by the utter lack of companionship. As
to any nervousness at being left entirely alone in a house, surrounded as it
was by the amenities of Golders Green, I never gave a thought to it, for I
had been inured to a reasonable solitude all my life. And, putting up a
notice of “Apartments to Let” in one of the ground-floor windows, I set
about the business of the house in something of a spirit of adventure
natural, if I may say so, to one of my years.
That, as I have said, was one week ago; and the very next day but one
after my housekeeper had left me was to see my hardly-won peace shattered
at one blow. I do not know if you gentlemen are aware of the mode of life
that obtains in Golders Green; but I must tell you that the natives of that
quarter do not discourage the activities of barrel-organs—a somewhat
surprising exercise of restraint to one who has been accustomed to the
dolorous and beautiful songs of the Balkan cziganes. It is true, however,
that these barrel-organs are played mostly by foreigners, and I have been
given to understand that foreigners are one of the most sacred institutions of
this great country.
The very next morning after my housekeeper had left me I was
distracted from my work by a particularly disagreeable combination of
sounds, which, I had no doubt, could come only from a barrel-organ not of
the first order and the untrained voice of its owner. A little amused, I looked
out of the window—and, with a heart how still, leapt back into the room,
for the face of the organ-grinder was the face of the Michaelis!
I spent an hour of agony in wondering if he had seen me, for how could I
doubt but that he had followed me to England in quest of the formula of the
carnation? At last, however, I decided that he could not have seen me, and I
was in some degree calmed by the decreasing noise of the barrel-organ as it
inflicted itself on more distant streets. London, I told myself, was a very
large city; it was not possible that the Michaelis could have the faintest idea
in what part of it I lodged; and it could only have been by the most
unfortunate combination of chances that he had brought his wretched organ
into Golgotha Road. Nevertheless I took the precaution to withdraw the
notice of Apartments to Let from the window, lest yet another unfortunate
combination of chances should lead him or his minions to search for
lodging in my house.
The next day passed quietly enough. I went out shopping with a veil
over my face, for reasons you can well understand. And little did I dream
that the approaching terror was to come from a quarter which would only be
known to the Michaelis when he was dead.
That evening in my bedroom, in a curious moment of forgetfulness, I
chanced to pull the bell-rope. I wanted some hot water, had for the moment
forgotten that the silly woman had left me, and only remembered it with a
smile when, far down in the basement, I heard the thin clatter of the bell.
The bathroom was some way down the passage, and I had reached the door,
empty jug in hand, when I was arrested by the sound of approaching steps!
They were very faint, they seemed to be coming up from the basement, as
though in answer to the bell! I pressed my hand to my forehead in a frantic
attempt to collect my wits, and I have no hesitation in saying that for those
few moments I was near insane. The accumulation of terrors in my recent
life had, I thought, unhinged my mind; and I must that day have engaged a
servant and forgotten it.
Meantime the steps ascended, slowly, steadily, exactly as an elderly
servant might ascend in answer to the bell; and as they ascended I was
driven, I cannot tell you how, somehow past fear. Maybe it was the blood of
the Samsonoffs at last raging in me: I was not afraid: and, without locking
the door, I withdrew to a far corner of the room, awaiting the moment when
the steps must reach the door. I must not forget to add that the empty jug
was still in my hand.
Steadily, but with a shuffling as of carpet-slippers, the steps came up the
passage: slowly the door was opened, and a gaunt, grey-haired woman in
musty black stood there, eyeing me with strange contempt. Fear returned,
enveloped me, shook me, and I sobbed, I screamed. The woman did not
move, did not speak, but stood there, gaunt and grey and dry, eyeing me
with a strange contempt; and on her lined face there was such an undreamt-
of expression of evil. Yet I recognised her.
I must tell you that my mother had often, in telling me of her brother,
spoken of his confidential housekeeper. My mother was a plain-spoken
woman, and I had gathered from her that the woman had exercised some
vulgar art to enthrall my poor uncle and had dominated him, to his hurt, in
all things. At the news of this woman’s death just before my mother’s tragic
end, she had been unable to resist an expression of relief; and I, on having
taken possession of the house a few weeks before, had examined with great
interest, as girls will, the various photographs of her that stood about the
rooms.
It was from these that I recognised the woman who stood in the
doorway. But she was dead, surely she had died more than a year ago! Yet
there she now stood, eyeing me with that strange contempt—with such
contempt, indeed, that I, reacting from fear to anger, sternly demanded of
her what she did there and what she wanted.
She was silent. That was perhaps the most awful moment of all—but no,
no, there was worse to come! For, sobbing with terror, I hurled the empty
jug at her vile face with a precision of aim which now astonishes me: but
she did not waver so much as the fraction of an inch as the jug came
straight at her—and, passing through her head, smashed into pieces against
the wall of the passage outside. I must have swooned where I stood; for
when I was again conscious of my surroundings she was gone, I was alone;
but, far down in the house, I could hear the shuffling steps, retreating,
descending, to the foul shades whence she had come.
Now I am one who cannot bear any imposition; and unable, despite the
witness of my own eyes, to believe in the psychic character of the intruder, I
ran out of the room and in hot pursuit down the stairs. The gaunt woman
must have descended with a swiftness surprising in one of her years, for I
could only see her shadow far below, on the last flight of stairs that would
take her to the basement. Into that lower darkness, I must confess, I had not
the courage to follow her; and still less so when, on peering down the pitch-
dark stairs into the kitchen, I was assailed by that musty smell which my
housekeeper had spoken of with such indignant conviction as of a
graveyard consistency.
I locked the door of my room and slept, I need scarcely say, but ill that
night. However, in the cheerful light of the following morning, I was
inclined, as who would not, to pooh-pooh the incredible events of the
previous night; and again pulled the bell-rope, just to see the event, if any.
There was; and, unable to await the ascent of the shuffling steps, I crammed
on a hat and ran down the stairs.
The woman was coming upstairs, steadily, inevitably. As she heard me
descending she stopped and looked up, and I cannot describe the effect that
the diabolical wickedness of her face had on me in the clear daylight. I
stopped, was rooted there, could not move. To get to the front-door I must
pass the foul thing, and that I could not summon the courage to do. And
then she raised an arm, as though to show me something, and I saw the
blade of a razor shining in her hand. You may well shudder, gentlemen!
When I came to it was to find myself lying at the foot of the stairs,
whither I must have fallen, and the foul thing gone. Why she did not kill
me, I do not know. God will pardon me for saying that maybe it had been
better if she had, for what miseries are not still in store for me! Trembling
and weak, I reached the door and impelled myself into the clear air of
morning. Nor could the fact that I had forgotten my veil, and the consequent
fear of the Michaelis, persuade me to reenter that house until I had regained
some degree of calmness.
All day long I wandered about, knowing neither what to do nor where to
go. I am not without some worldly sense, and I knew what little assistance
the police could give me in such a dilemma, even had they believed me;
while as for the lawyer, Mr. Tarbold, how could I face a man of so little
sympathy in ordinary things with such an extraordinary tale?
Towards ten o’clock that night, I determined to return and risk another
night in that house; I was desperate with weariness and hunger; and could
not buy food nor lodging for the night, for in my flight I had forgotten my
purse; while I argued to myself that if, after all, she had intended to murder
me, she could without any difficulty have done so that morning when I lay
unconscious on the stairs.
My bravery, however, did not help me to ascend the stairs to my
bedroom with any resolution. I stole upstairs, myself verily like a phantom.
But, hearing no sound in the house, I plucked up the courage to switch on
the light on my bedroom landing. My bedroom-door stood open, but I could
not remember whether or not I had left it so that morning. It was probable,
in my hasty descent. I tiptoed to it and peered in—and I take the liberty to
wonder whether any man, was he never such a lion-heart, had been less
disturbed than I at the sight which the light of the moon revealed to my
eyes.
The Michaelis lay full length on the floor, his great fair beard darkened
with his blood, which came, I saw, from a great gash behind his ear. Across
him, with her back to me, sat straddled the gaunt foul thing, as silent as the
grave. Yet even my terror could not overcome my curiosity as to her
actions, for she kept on lowering and raising her left hand to and from the
Michaelis’s beard, while with her right, in which shone the bloody razor,
she sawed the air from side to side. I could not realise what that vile shape
was doing—I could, and could not admit the realisation. For with her left
hand she was plucking out one by one the long hairs of the Michaelis’s
beard, while with the razor in her right she was slicing them to the floor!
I must have gasped, made some noise, for she heard me; and, turning on
me and brandishing the dripping razor, she snarled like an animal and leapt
towards me. But I am young and quick, and managed just in time to reach
the street-door and slam it against her enraged pursuit.
That was last night. Since then, gentlemen, I have wandered about the
streets of London, resting a little among the poor people in the Parks. I have
had no food, for what money I have is in that house, together with the
formula for the green carnation; but nothing, not death by exposure nor
death by starvation, would induce me to return to the house in Golders
Green while it is haunted by that foul presence. Is she a homicidal lunatic or
a phantom from hell? I do not know, I am too tired to care. I have told you
two gentlemen my story because you seem kind and capable, and I can only
pray that I have not wearied you overmuch. But I do beg you to believe that
nothing is further from my mind than to ask, and indeed nothing would
induce me to accept, anything from you but the generous sympathy of your
understanding and the advice of your chivalrous intelligence. My tale is
finished, gentlemen. And, alas, am not I?
IV
Mr. Trevor is somewhat confused in his relation of the course of events

immediately subsequent to Miss Samsonoff’s narrative. During its course
he had time, he says, to study the young lady’s beauty, which, though of a
very superior order, was a little too innocent and insipid for his taste. His
judgment, however, cannot be entirely fair, for such was the direction of the
young lady’s eyes that Mr. Trevor could judge her by her features only. As
to the story itself, Mr. Trevor says that, while yielding to no one in his
liking for a good story, he could not see his way to considering Miss
Samsonoff’s notable either for interest, entertainment, or that human note of
stark realism which makes for conviction; and while, in the ordinary way, a
murderer was to him like a magnet, he could not rouse himself to feel
irresistibly attracted towards the ghoul of Golders Green. It was therefore
with surprise not unmixed with pain that he heard Mr. Maturin saying:
“Ralph, we are in luck!”
“To what,” Mr. Trevor could not entirely cleanse his voice from the
impurity of sarcasm, “to what do you refer?” But it was not without some
compunction that he heard the young lady sigh miserably to Beau Maturin:
“I am afraid I have wearied your friend. Forgive me.”
“My friend,” said Beau Maturin gently, “is an ass. In point of fact, Miss
Samsonoff, far from wearying us, you have put us under a great obligation
——”
“Ah, you are kind!” the young lady was moved to sob.
“On the contrary,” Mr. Maturin warmly protested, “I am selfish. I gather
you have not been reading the newspapers lately? Had you done so, you
would have read of a murderer who has recently been loose in London and
has so far evaded not only capture but even identification. So far as the
public know through the newspapers this criminal has been responsible for
only two or three murders; but this very night my friend and I have had
private information to the effect that within the last few weeks twelve
mutilated corpses have been found in various parts of London; to which we
must now, no doubt, add a thirteenth, the remains of your late enemy, Mr.
Michaelis. But where your information,” said Mr. Maturin gallantly, “is
especially valuable, is that the police do not dream that the criminal is of
your sex. To my friend and me it is this original point that invests the
pursuit——”
“Pursuit?” Mr. Trevor could not help starting.
“—with,” said Mr. Maturin coldly, “an added charm. And now with your
permission, Miss Samsonoff, we will not only return to you your formula,
as to the financial worth of which I cannot entirely share your late parent’s
optimism, but also——”
“Also,” Mr. Trevor said with restraint, “we will first of all call at Vine
Street and borrow a few policemen.”
“Oh, yes!” the young lady said eagerly. “We will be sure to need some
policemen. Please get some policemen. They will listen to you.”
“I do not find an audience so difficult to find as all that,” said Mr.
Maturin coldly. “The London police, Miss Samsonoff, are delightful, but
rather on the dull side. They are much given to standing in the middle of
crowded roads and dreaming, and in even your short stay in London you
must have observed what a serious, nay intolerable, obstruction they are to
the traffic. No, no, my friend and I will get this murderer ourselves. Come,
Miss Samsonoff.”
“But I dare not come with you!” cried the young lady. “I simply dare not
approach that house again! May I not await your return here?”
“The attacks of ten murderers,” said Mr. Maturin indignantly, “cannot
disfigure your person more violently than being left alone in a night-club
will disfigure your reputation. Bulgarians may be violent, Miss Samsonoff.
But lounge lizards are low dogs.”
Mr. Trevor says that he was so plunged in thought that he did not arise
from the table with his usual agility; and the first notice he had that Mr.
Maturin had risen and was nearly at the door was on hearing him waive
aside a pursuing waiter with the damnable words: “My friend will pay.”
Without, the taxicab was still waiting. Its driver, says Mr. Trevor, was
one of those stout men of little speech and impatient demeanour: on which
at this moment was plainly written the fact that he had been disagreeably
affected by waiting in the cold for nearly two hours; and on Mr. Maturin’s
sternly giving him a Golders Green direction he just looked at our two
gentlemen and appeared to struggle with an impediment in his throat.
Golgotha Road was, as the young lady had described it, a genteel street
of tall gloomy houses. Mr. Trevor says that he cannot remember when he
liked the look of a street less. The taxicab had not penetrated far therein
when Miss Samsonoff timidly begged Mr. Maturin to stop its further
progress, pointing out that she could not bear to wait immediately opposite
the house and would indeed have preferred to await her brave cavaliers in
an altogether different part of London. Mr. Maturin, however, soothed her
fears; and, gay as a schoolboy, took the key of the house from her reluctant
fingers and was jumping from the cab when Miss Samsonoff cried:
“But surely you have weapons!”
Mr. Trevor says that, while yielding to no one in deploring the use of
weapons in daily life, in this particular instance the young lady’s words
struck him as full of a practical grasp of the situation.
“Of course,” said Mr. Trevor nonchalantly, “we must have weapons.
How stupid of us to have forgotten! I will go back to my flat and get some. I
won’t be gone a moment.”
“That’s right,” Mr. Maturin agreed, “because you won’t be gone at all.
My dear Miss Samsonoff, my friend and I do not need weapons. We put our
trust in God and St. George. Come along, Ralph. Miss Samsonoff, we will
be back in a few moments.”
“And wot do I do?” asked the taxi-driver.
“Nothing,” cried Mr. Maturin gaily. “Nothing at all. Aren’t you lucky!”
The house which the young lady had pointed out to them had an air of
even gloomier gentility than the others, and Mr. Trevor says he cannot
remember when he liked the look of a house less, particularly when the
ancient brown door gave to Beau Maturin’s hand before he had put the key
into the lock. Mr. Trevor could not resist a natural exclamation of surprise.
Mr. Maturin begged him not to shout. Mr. Trevor said that he was not
shouting, and, without a thought for his own safety, was rushing headlong
into the house to meet the terror single-handed when he found that his shoe-
lace was untied.
He found Beau Maturin in what, he supposed, would be called a hall
when it was not a pit of darkness. A stealthily lit match revealed that it was
a hall, a narrow one, and it also revealed a closed door to the right, by Mr.
Trevor’s elbow, which he removed. The match went out.
“Quietly,” said Mr. Maturin quite unnecessarily, for Mr. Trevor says he
cannot remember when he felt less noisy. He heard the door to his right
open, softly, softly.
“Is it you opening that door?” he asked, merely from curiosity.
“Ssh!” snapped Beau Maturin. “Hang on to my shoulder-blades.”
Mr. Trevor thought it better to calm Beau Maturin’s fears by acceding to
his whim, and clung close behind him as they entered the room. The moon,
which Mr. Trevor already had reason to dislike, was hanging at a moderate
elevation over Golders Green as though on purpose to reveal the darkness
of that room. Mr. Trevor’s foot then struck a shape on the floor. The shape
was soft and long. Mr. Trevor was surprised. Mr. Maturin whispered:
“Found anything?”
Mr. Trevor said briefly that his foot had.
“So’s mine,” said Beau Maturin. “What’s yours like? Mine’s rather soft
to the touch.”
“And mine,” said Mr. Trevor.
“They’re corpses, let’s face it,” sighed Mr. Maturin. “Making fifteen in
all. With us, seventeen. Just give yours a kick, Ralph, to see if it’s alive.
I’ve kicked mine.”
“I don’t kick corpses,” Mr. Trevor was muttering when he felt a hard
round thing shoved into the small of his back.
“Ow!” said Mr. Trevor.
“Found anything?” said Mr. Maturin.
Mr. Trevor said briefly that there was something against his back.
“And mine,” sighed Mr. Maturin. “What’s yours like? Mine’s rather hard
on the back.”
“So is mine,” said Mr. Trevor.
“They’re revolvers, let’s face it,” sighed Beau Maturin.
“They are,” said a hard voice behind them. “So don’t move.”
“I’ve got some sense, thank you,” snapped Beau Maturin.
“Sir,” said the harsh voice, and it was a woman’s voice, “I want none of
your lip. I have you each covered with a revolver——”
“Waste,” said Beau Maturin. “One revolver would have been quite
enough. Besides, my friend and I were distinctly given to understand that
you were partial to a razor. Or do you use that for shaving?”
“I use a razor,” said the harsh voice, “only when I want to kill. But I
have a use for you two.”
The light was suddenly switched on, a light so venomous, says Mr.
Trevor, that they had to blink furiously. And that must have been a very
large room, for they could not see into its far corners. The light came from
what must have been a very high-powered lamp directly above a table in the
middle of the room; and it was concentrated by a shade in such a way as to
fall, like a search-light, exactly on the two helpless gentlemen. Mr. Trevor
says that Beau Maturin’s handsome face looked white and ghastly, so the
Lord knows what Mr. Trevor’s must have looked like. Meanwhile their
captor leapt from her station behind them, and they were privileged to see
her for the first time. She was, says Mr. Trevor, exactly as Miss Samsonoff
had described her, grey and gaunt and dry, and her expression was strangely
contemptuous and evil as sin. And never for a moment did she change the
direction of her revolvers, which was towards our gentlemen’s hearts. Mr.
Trevor says he cannot remember when he saw a woman look less afraid that
a revolver might go off in her hand.
“Look down,” she commanded.
“It’s all right,” said Beau Maturin peaceably; “we’ve already guessed
what they are. Corpses. Nice cold night for them, too. Keep for days in
weather like this.”
Mr. Trevor could not resist looking down to his feet. The corpses were of
two youngish men in dress-clothes.
“They’re cut badly,” said Mr. Maturin.
“They’re not cut at all,” said the woman harshly. “I shot these two for a
change.”
“I meant their clothes,” Mr. Maturin explained. “Death was too good for
them with dress-clothes like that.”
“Well, I can’t stop here all night talking about clothes,” snapped the
woman. “Now then, to business. These bodies have to be buried in the
back-garden. You will each take one. There are spades just behind you. I
shall not have the slightest hesitation in killing you as I have killed these
two, but it will be more convenient for me if you do as you are told. I may
kill you later, and I may not. Now be quick!”
“Lord, what’s that!” cried Mr. Trevor sharply. He had that moment
realised a strange muffled, ticking noise which must, he thought, come
either from somewhere in the room or from a room nearby. And, while he
was never in his life less conscious of feeling fear, he could not help but be
startled by that ticking noise, for he had heard it before, when timing a
dynamite-bomb.
“That is why,” the woman explained with what, Mr. Trevor supposed,
was meant to be a smile, “you will be safer in the garden. Women are but
weak creatures, and so I take the precaution of having a rather large size in
dynamite-bombs so timed that I have but to press a button to send us all to
blazes. It will not be comfortable for the police when, if ever, they catch
me. But pick up those spades and get busy.”
“Now don’t be rude,” begged Beau Maturin. “I can stand anything from
plain women but discourtesy. Ralph, you take the bigger corpse, as you are
smaller than I am, while I take this little fellow on my shoulder—which will
probably be the nearest he will ever get to heaven, with clothes cut as badly
as that.”
“You can come back for the bodies when you’ve dug the graves,”
snapped the woman. “Take the spades and go along that passage. No tricks!
I am just behind you.”
There was a lot of rubbish in that garden. It had never been treated as a
garden, it did not look like a garden, it looked even less like a garden than
did The Garden of My Grandmother. High walls enclosed it. And over it
that deplorable moon threw a sheet of dead daylight.
“Dig,” said the woman with the revolvers, and they dug.
“Do you mind if we take our coats off?” asked Beau Maturin. Mr. Trevor
says that he was being sarcastic.
“I don’t mind what you take off,” snapped the woman.
“Now don’t say naughty things!” said Mr. Maturin. “Nothing is more
revolting than the naughtiness of plain women.”
They dug, says Mr. Trevor, for a long time, for a very long time. Not,
however, that it was difficult digging once one had got into the swing of it,
for that garden was mostly dug-up soil. Suddenly Beau Maturin said:
“Bet you a fiver I dig a grave for my fellow before you.”
“Right!” said Mr. Trevor.
“And,” said the woman, “I don’t allow any betting in this house. So call
that bet off.”
“What?” said Mr. Maturin.
“Dig,” said the woman with the revolvers.
Mr. Maturin threw down his spade.
Mr. Trevor dug.
Mr. Maturin said: “Dig yourself!”
Mr. Trevor brandished his spade from a distance. He noticed for the first
time that they had been digging in the light of the dawn and not of the
moon.
“And who the deuce,” said Mr. Maturin dangerously, “do you think you
are, not to allow any betting? I have stood a lot from you, but I won’t stand
that.”
“Dig,” said the woman with the revolvers, but Mr. Maturin advanced
upon the revolvers like a punitive expedition. Mr. Trevor brandished his
spade.
“Another step, and I fire!” cried the woman harshly.
“Go ahead,” said Mr. Maturin. “I’ll teach you to stop me betting! And I
hate your face.”
“Oh, dear; oh, dear!” the woman suddenly cried with a face of fear and,
lowering her revolvers, fled into the house.
Mr. Trevor was so surprised that he could scarcely speak. Mr. Maturin
laughed so much that he could not speak.
“What’s there to laugh about?” Mr. Trevor asked at last.
“It’s funny. They’ve had us, let’s face it. Come on, let’s follow her in.”
“She may shoot,” Mr. Trevor cautioned.
“Shoot my eye!” sighed Beau Maturin.
Once in the house, Mr. Trevor stopped spellbound. There were voices,
there was laughter—from the room of the two corpses!
“They’re laughing at us!” said Mr. Trevor.
“Who wouldn’t!” laughed Beau Maturin, and, opening the door, said:
“Good morning.”
“You’ve said it,” said the policeman. “Haw-haw!”
“You’ll have some breakfast?” asked the woman with the revolvers.
“Please do!” said Miss Samsonoff.
“You ought to be hungry,” said the taxi-driver with the Homburg hat of
green plush.
“Look here!” gasped Mr. Trevor. “What the blazes——”
“Haw-haw!” laughed the policeman. “ ’Ave a bit of vealanam-pie?”
“Now, Ted, don’t be rude to the gentlemen!” said the woman with the
revolvers.
“Quite right, mother,” said Miss Samsonoff. “We owe these gentlemen
an explanation and an apology——”
“And if they don’t take it we are in the soup!” miserably said the man in
the Homburg hat of green plush.
“Now, you two, go and get cups and plates for the two gentlemen,” said
the woman with the revolvers to the two corpses in dress-clothes.
“Listen, please,” Miss Samsonoff gravely addressed Mr. Maturin, “my
name isn’t Samsonoff at all but Kettlewell, and that’s my mother and these
are my four brothers——”
“How do you do?” said Mr. Maturin, absently drinking the policeman’s
coffee, but Mr. Trevor is glad that no one heard what he said.
“You see,” said Miss Kettlewell, and she was shy and beautiful, “we are
The Kettlewell Film Company, just us; but of course we haven’t got a lot of
money——”
“A ‘lot’ is good!” said the policeman.
“My brother there,” and Miss Kettlewell pointed to the wretched man
with the Homburg hat of green plush, “was the director of an American
company in Los Angeles, but he got the sack lately and so we thought we
would make some films on our own. You see, we are such a large family!
And the recent murders gave us a really brilliant idea for a film called ‘The
Ghoul of Golders Green,’ which, thanks to you two gentlemen, we have
completed to-night. Oh, I do hope it will be a success, especially as you
have been kind enough to help us in our predicament, for we hadn’t any
money to engage actors—and we did so need two gentlemen, just like you,
who really looked the part, didn’t we, mother?”
“But, my dear child,” cried Beau Maturin, “I’m afraid your film can’t
have come out very well. Trevor and I will look perfectly ghastly, as we
neither of us had any make-up on.”
“But it’s that kind of film!” smiled Miss Kettlewell. “You see, you and
your friend are supposed to be corpses who by some powerful psychic
agency are digging your own graves—— Heavens, what’s that!”
There, at the open door, stood an apparition with a dreadful face. He
appeared, says Mr. Trevor, to have some difficulty in choosing among the
words that his state of mind was suggesting to him.
“And me?” gasped the taxi-driver hoarsely. “Wot abaht me?
‘Angingabahtallnight! ‘Oo’s going to pay me, that’s wot I want to know?
There’s four quid and more on that clock——”
Mr. Maturin swept his empty coffee-cup round to indicate the family
Kettlewell.
“My friends will pay,” sighed Mr. Maturin.
XI: FAREWELL, THESE CHARMING PEOPLE
N OW, at last, the entertainment moves towards its end, the curtain is
atremble for its fall, the affair called May Fair is on tiptoe to make a
last bow and retire forever into those anxious shades where all that is
not of the first excellence must come to the foul embrace of limbo. So let
the curtain fall, that we may get back to the serious business of life. But, oh,
it is easy enough to say that! The rub is, a curtain has to be contrived.
Action is demanded; and all the world loves a climax. In fine, ladies and
gentlemen, those inexorable twin sisters, Finale and Farewell, have still to
be served. And how shall that be done?
It happened that I was in Paris when I was thinking upon this matter with
some urgency. How shall the farewell be contrived, thought I, how indeed?
For, by the waters of the Thames, there never was such a trouble put upon
mankind as this confounded business of leave-taking! Haven’t we all, to be
sure, been sometime harassed by the saying of farewell? by the fumbling of
that pitiful, pitiless occasion? Indeed, find us the man or woman who can
say good-bye with ease, and he or she shall instantly have a clear start to
our friendship. How often we have been distressed by the agonies of
someone’s incapable departure! And you may rifle all diplomacy for ways
and means to help some people take their leave, and still their glassy,
fevered eyes will search your face as though for the ultimate word, still
their aggressive nervousness will not permit you to put them and yourself
out of their agony. While as for those poor wretches whom it is our dread
delight to “see off” at railway stations, what confusion of mind is theirs, and
ours! He is at the window of his carriage, smiling: we on the platform,
smiling: others are nearby, smiling: hands are shaken, good-byes are said ...
and does the train go? It does not. Wouldn’t we then, if we but dared,
implore the departing wretch to withdraw his tormented head from the
window, sit back in his seat, hide himself behind a paper and send us all to
the deuce? We would, but we don’t, and he can’t, so fumble, fumble,
fumble, until at last the train takes him—or her, why not?—from us who
had once thought we were sorry he was going. Oh, no, this business of

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Innovations in E Systems for Business and Commerce 1st

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Digital Business and E-Commerce Management 7th Edition

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Preface . ................................................................................................................................................ xii

Acknowledgment . .............................................................................................................................. xvi

Related References . .......................................................................................................................... 255

Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 277

About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 315

Preface . ................................................................................................................................................ xii

Acknowledgment . .............................................................................................................................. xvi

Related References . .......................................................................................................................... 255

Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 277

About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 315

LEVERAGING SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL SHOPPING

SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS IMPACT ON BUSINESS

Social Networking Services

SOCIAL MEDIA-BASED BUSINESS MODELS

SOCIAL MEDIA AND CONSUMER INFORMATION SHARING

Table 1 summarizes these three types of consumer reviews.

1. Group shopping sites and

Table 1. Three types of consumer reviews

Type of Consumer Review Description Example Sites

Theoretical Perspectives on Social Shopping

1. Broad online communities,

Mr. Trevor is somewhat confused in his relation of the course of events

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