Attention-Seeking in Hypercompetitive Markets: The Case of Meta-Platforms
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2025
Author(s)
Abstract
Meta-platforms such as price and comparison engines intensify the trade-off platforms face in aligning complementors that pursue opposing modalities of competition: while some seek price-based competition, others strive for quality-based competition. Extant research suggests that smaller complementors pursuing differentiation strategies risk displacement in such hypercompetitive markets. We examine the extent to which the targeted featuring of high-status complementors’ perceived quality attributes facilitates attention anchoring on high-quality offerings. Investigating the fashion category of a leading meta-platform, we find empirical support for a penalizing effect of high-price complements in grabbing user attention, an attention-grabbing effect for complements of featured high-status complementors, and an attention-shifting effect from price to quality for those featured high-status complementors facilitating a price-quality comparison. We even quantify the attention-shifting effect with premium-featured complementors attenuating the negative baseline effect between complement price and complement attention while luxury-featured complementors amplify it. We contribute to platform research on complementor heterogeneities, governance, and coopetition.
Keywords
platform ecosystem
inter-platform ecosystem
competition for attention
complementor heterogeneity
platform governance
featuring
coopetition
Event Title
European Digital Platform Research Network (EU-DPRN) 2025 Summit
Event Location
IE Business School, Madrid, Spain
Event Date
26-27 June, 2025
Contact Email Address
dora.maric@unisg.ch
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