Cause-related marketing (CRM) has become increasingly popular and widely adopted by large companies. However, not much attention has been paid to the effect of CRM on small or unknown online retailers. As ethical concerns about the Internet continue to rise, consumers' perceptions regarding the ethics of online retailers (CPEOR) become important when making a purchase decision. This research uses the self-signaling theory to examine how online retailers’ information management and promotional strategy (CRM vs. Price Discount) may emit signals and impact on the consumers’ repurchase intention. It was assumed that a high CPEOR would work better with a CRM-based strategy, which is fundamentally aligning in ethics. However, the experimental results surprisingly revealed that when CPEOR was high, the consumers’ repurchase intention increased in the case of a Price Discount-based promotion when compared to a CRM-based promotion; the effect was the opposite when consumers’ CPEOR was low. ANCOVA was used to analyze the data while setting certain variables as covariates. This research is a meaningful contribution to the literature and serves as an important reference for e-commerce practitioners to understand how they can wisely manage the information on the online storefront to signal their consumers and create an incremental value for the business.

与因果相关的营销（CRM）已变得越来越流行，并被大公司广泛采用。但是，对CRM对小型或未知在线零售商的影​​响关注不大。随着对互联网的道德问题的持续关注，消费者在做出购买决定时对在线零售商的道德观念（CPEOR）变得越来越重要。这项研究使用自我信号传递理论来研究在线零售商的信息管理和促销策略（CRM与价格折扣）如何发出信号并影响消费者的回购意向。假定较高的CPEOR与基于CRM的策略更好地配合使用，该策略从根本上符合道德规范。但是，实验结果令人惊讶地发现，当CPEOR很高时，与基于CRM的促销相比，基于价格折扣的促销增加了消费者的回购意愿；当消费者的CPEOR较低时，效果相反。ANCOVA用于分析数据，同时将某些变量设置为协变量。这项研究为文献做出了有意义的贡献，并为电子商务从业人员了解他们如何能够明智地管理在线店面信息以向消费者发出信号并为企业创造增量价值提供了重要参考。