Selling in Prompt Marketplace: An Empirical Study on the Joint Effects of Linguistic and Demonstration Signals on Prompt Sales

The proliferation of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) spawns a new type of freelance digital platform: prompt marketplace, on which prompt engineers upload their prompts and sell them to potential buyers. As only freelancers themselves know about the prompt in detail and they can only provide limited textual information, great information asymmetry exists that may hinder exchange. Besides, one distinct feature of prompt marketplace is that prompt engineers can display part of their prompt to potential buyers. Thus, drawing on the signaling theory, this study investigates the joint effects of linguistic and demonstration signals on prompt sales. Data from 16,890 prompts were collected and analyzed. Results show that linguistic signals and their interaction with demonstration signals significantly influence prompt sales. Interestingly, we found the negative direct influence of demonstration signals on prompt sales. Our study has theoretical contributions to freelance digital platform literature and extends signaling theory to prompt marketplace. This study can also provide practical suggestions to platforms and freelancers alike.