@inproceedings{f5ba62b15c864804b034f9e0c0353fc7,
title = "Connecting customers and merchants offline: Experimental evidence from the commercialization of last-mile pickup stations at alibaba",
abstract = "Many e-commerce platforms have established extensive networks of last-mile stations as their logistics infrastructure. In this study, we investigate how this last-mile infrastructure may serve as an offline platform for commercial activities (e.g., free sample distribution) to connect customers and merchants. In collaboration with Alibaba, we design two large-scale experimental studies and provide the first evidence on how platforms can leverage the walk-in traffic (organic interaction) and prompt nearby customers through online intervention (induced interactions) to improve customers' online engagement with the merchants and offline utilization of logistics infrastructure.",
keywords = "Induced interaction, Instrumental forest, Last-mile logistics, Natural experiment, Offline platform, Randomized field experiment",
author = "Han, {Brian Rongqing} and Tianshu Sun and Chu, {Leon Yang} and Lixia Wu and Yinghui Xu",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 40th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2019. All rights reserved.; 40th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2019 ; Conference date: 15-12-2019 Through 18-12-2019",
year = "2019",
language = "English (US)",
series = "40th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2019",
publisher = "Association for Information Systems",
booktitle = "40th International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2019",
}