Can e-commerce platforms build the resilience of brick-and-mortar businesses to the COVID-19 shock? An empirical analysis in the Chinese retail industry

Sirui Li, Ying Liu, Jing Su, Xin Luo and Xiao Yang

ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: We proposed a research model that examined the differences between the contributions of large, third-party e-commerce platforms and self-operated e-commerce platforms to businesses’ resilience to the COVID-19 shock. The difference-in-differences approach was employed to analyze a substantial sample of Chinese retailers. The study found that (1) under the baseline condition, the large, third-party e-commerce platforms built significant resilience for the brick-and-mortar businesses, (2) resource constraints induced by factor immobility weakened the contribution of large, third-party e-commerce platforms to the businesses’ resilience in regions of severe shock, and (3) the physical retailers’ self-operated EC platforms built resilience in regions of severe shock.

Keywords: Brick-and-mortar business; COVID-19; Digital resilience; E-commerce (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-05-05
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Note: SCOPUS: ar.j
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in: Electronic commerce research (2022) v.23,p.2827–2857

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