Does Lower Transaction Price Attract More Customers?: An Empirical Study on the Short and Long Term Impacts of Online Brokerage Services

We examine price and quality as variables to examine the determinants of online brokerage’s market share and empirically investigate the effects using panel data during an eight-year span. Panel data not only allows us to isolate the short-term from that of the long-term impacts of online services on firm performance, but also to avoid the problem of studying “disequilibrium” in a “land rush” period of e-commerce. Our study identifies the significant role of interest revenue in the brokerage business and the central contribution of service quality in increasing interest revenue. We show that the businesses’ adequate management of the two generic strategies – price leadership and quality differentiation – can maximize aggregate revenues from various sources. Our study helps various businesses understand the underlying businesses principles by unraveling the effects of the interaction between price and quality strategies and their contribution to the respective and aggregate revenues.