Software Marketing on the Internet: The Use of Samples and Repositories
CCP Working Paper No. 08-23
31 Pages Posted: 5 Jun 2008
Date Written: June 2, 2008
Abstract
This paper examines one of the most important marketing strategies by software producers on the Internet. That is whether to offer free samples and if so, whether to list the samples on shareware repositories. I show that firms with higher value products have a greater incentive to offer free samples but are more reluctant to do so if they are well known, and even when they do are less likely to be listed on shareware repositories. I then proceed to use four types of Probit-based models to corroborate the findings from the theoretical model.
Keywords: Shareware, Software, Internet, Distribution, Intermediation, Directory, Repository, Advertising, Brand, Reputation, Asymmetric Information, Search, Sample
JEL Classification: D42, D43, D82, D83, L13, L15, L81, L86
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Search Engines Under Siege: Do Paid Placement Listings Infringe Trademarks?
-
Pay for Play: Sponsored Recommendations in Information Gatekeepers
By Hemant K. Bhargava and Juan Feng
-
Versioning and Quality Distortion in Software? Evidence from E-Commerce Panel Data
By Anindya Ghose and Arun Sundararajan