Review of studies on digital transaction platforms in marketing journals

ABSTRACT

Digital transaction platforms now intermediate a large number of transactions between end-customers and independent sellers and service providers in many parts of the economy. In retail, for example, Amazon.com now intermediates transactions between end-customers and hundreds of thousands of independent sellers worldwide, while Etsy.com connects artists, crafters, and collectors with buyers of a large range of niche and rare products. The growing popularity of digital transaction platforms, therefore, has significant implications for retail, marketing and distribution scholars as the existing interaction patterns in the value-chain are increasingly replaced by new digital intermediaries. The purpose of this review is, therefore, to examine, through an extensive and rigorous review of research on digital transaction platforms in marketing journals, what we know and what opportunities lie ahead to expand the theoretical and empirical understanding of digital transaction platforms. The review shows that despite increasing multi-disciplinary and managerial interest towards digital transaction platforms and the platform economy, they remain largely unexplored in marketing journals, and the existing research and theorizing attempts remain fragmented. Therefore, there are many opportunities for marketing, retail and distribution scholars to, for example, collaborate with industry and practitioners in order to gain new perspectives and access to novel data sources, and for example, meet the emerging funding requirements of many universities and governmental funding agencies for more rigorous multi-disciplinary research on digital markets and digital business models.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital transaction platforms
• multi-sided markets
• review
• marketing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

Mikko Hänninen

Mikko Hänninen is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the Department of Marketing at the Aalto University School of Business, Espoo, Finland. Much of his research has concentrated on understanding the opportunities and challenges provided by new digital business models and services, particularly through technological innovation and the platform revolution. Theoretically, Mikko’s research interests focus on understanding the implications of the intertwining of humans and technology on both the micro- and macro-level dynamics of the society around us. Mikko has worked with numerous companies in his research from start-ups to large multinational companies both in Finland and abroad. His research has been published in journals such as Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, and the Baltic Journal of Management.