Article ID: | iaor20105726 |
Volume: | 61 |
Issue: | 9 |
Start Page Number: | 1377 |
End Page Number: | 1388 |
Publication Date: | Sep 2010 |
Journal: | Journal of the Operational Research Society |
Authors: | Mar-Molinero C, Serrano-Cinca C, Fuertes-Calln Y |
Keywords: | retailing |
This article analyses intangible constructs that affect sales on the Internet retailing industry. We suggest an explanatory model for the success of retailers that operate on the Internet. Non-financial information has been used to identify several intangible constructs: ‘web traffic generation’, ‘relevance in search engines’, ‘link popularity’, and ‘blogs popularity’. The success is measured through items derived from financial statements: sales and profits. The model has been built within a structural modelling framework. It has been estimated using Partial Least Squares with a sample of USA e-tailers. The results show that there is a significant relationship between the intangible constructs and accounting figures. This relationship is stronger when we consider Sales from Internet Operations rather than Total Sales or Net Profit.