Article
Will Internet Market Newness Improve Performance?
An Empirical Study on the Internet Market Innovation of
Offline Retailers in China
Cheng Lu
1,2,
* , Tongyu Gu
1,2
, Jie Chen
3
and Zunli Liu
4
Citation: Lu, C.; Gu, T.; Chen, J.; Liu,
Z. Will Internet Market Newness
Improve Performance? An Empirical
Study on the Internet Market
Innovation of Offline Retailers in
China. Sustainability 2021, 13, 12619.
https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212619
Academic Editor: Ermanno C. Tortia
Received: 4 October 2021
Accepted: 12 November 2021
Published: 15 November 2021
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4.0/).
1
College of Fashion and Design, Donghua University, Shanghai 200051, China; gracegu@dhu.edu.cn
2
Key Laboratory of Clothing Design & Technology, Donghua University, Ministry of Education,
Shanghai 200051, China
3
Antai School of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200030, China;
jiechjie@163.com
4
School of Management, Shanghai University of Engineering Science,
Shanghai 201620, China
; liuzl2@126.com
* Correspondence: lc@dhu.edu.cn
Abstract:
With the increasing impact of the Internet, the transformation of traditional retailers
through Internet innovation has become a pressing issue. Based on the theory of innovation and
marketing capability, this study investigated the relationships among adaptive marketing capability
(AMC), Internet market newness, and innovation performance. The mediation effect of compromise
on these relationships was also investigated. Through data analysis of 205 questionnaires in China,
the current study confirmed that interaction between AMC and Internet market newness significantly
affected innovation performance, and Internet market newness positively affected performance only
when AMC was high. The results also demonstrated that compromise mediated the interaction
with performance. AMC moderated not only the direct effects on performance by Internet market
newness, but the effects on compromise by Internet market newness.
Keywords: Internet market innovation; adaptive marketing capability; compromise; retail
1. Introduction
With the rapid development of the Internet market, the innovation and transformation
of enterprises have been accelerated. Internet-based emerging markets pose a challenge to
the status of traditional markets [
1
]. The digital economy, represented by the Internet, has
brought subversive changes to the applicability of traditional economic models [
2
,
3
]. The
theory of remodeling and value creation of business models in the Internet era has been
hotly debated academically [4–6].
China’s traditional retail industry has suffered a greater impact. On behalf of Suning
Tesco, Wangfujing, Yintai, Tianhong, and other well-known Chinese brick-and-mortar
retailers built their own shopping sites, which was an iconic event for offline retailers to
launch online sales channels [
6
–
8
]. Driven by the digital economy, new business forms
of the retail industry are becoming more and more diversified and flexible. The level of
innovation in production and business models has been continuously improved. Physical
retail enterprises have launched the “New Retail” stage of expanding online sales channels
from purely offline stores to deep integration of online and offline logistics [
7
]. The business
model of Chinese retail enterprises presents four characteristics of transformation: deep on-
line, socialization and fragmentation, being unmanned, and being platform-oriented [
9
]. In
the era of mobile Internet, the typical new retail business model in China is that enterprises
and customers are directly connected through products or community platforms. Sharing
and interacting with customers, the community, as a platform constantly transmits emo-
tional information and exchange resources and generates many connection dividends [
10
].
Chinese retail enterprises are building a new retail business model based on the Internet
Sustainability 2021, 13, 12619. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212619 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
