Exploring the Effect of Online Time-Deals on Actual Purchase in China : An Empirical Study on JD.com

Abstract

This study explores the effect of time-deals, i.e., online promotions with time limit. Recently many online/mobile shopping sites in China utilize so called hot deal marketing technique for a short duration at a specific time. The purpose of “time-deals” is to attract online shoppers with deep discounted price and induce consumers to purchase items. This paper examines the effect of time-deals on sales volume, firstly by comparing the sales volume of time-deal days with that of no time-deal days and secondly by comparing the sales volume of days before and after two types of time deals, usual time-deals and special time-deals,Although some prior research studied the role of time-deals in promoting consumers’ purchase behavior, most used the experimental approach by building mock-up shopping sites and asking participants purchase intention. However, purchase intention does not always result in purchase behavior. This study extracted actual purchase data for four items on time-deals from an online shopping site in China. A comparison of sales volumes on time-deal days with no time-deal days has shown the significant difference in the sales volumes. This finding confirms the positive effect of time-deals on purchase behavior. This study has also found that special time-deals soak up near-future demands in advance and lower the sales after the special time-deal event, although there is no significant difference in sales before and after usual time-deals.