Getting on the Map: The Impact of Online Listings on Business Performance
研究发现约18%的酒吧和餐厅在2017年底没有在线列表，而新增列表可使收入增加5%-10%，对非连锁店、旅游区商家及高评分餐厅效果更显著。
We evaluate the extent to which small businesses maintain an online presence and estimate the impact of digital representation on business performance. Looking at a review platform, we find that roughly 18% of bars and restaurants in our sample do not have a listing as of the end of 2017, even though creating one is free. We then estimate the effect of adding a new listing using tax records on revenues combined with temporal variation in listing activity as well as a natural experiment that added over a thousand businesses to the platform via a data acquisition. The results suggest that new listings increase revenues in the range of 5%–10%; however, these effects vary substantially across establishments. Establishments that struggle to develop a reputation (e.g., nonchains or those in tourist areas) and those with a higher quality of product (e.g., larger restaurants or those with good reviews) experience larger increases after being listed. This paper was accepted by Duncan Simester, marketing. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.04716 .