Group buying on the Web: A comparison of price-discovery mechanisms

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Anand, KS; Aron, R
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.49.11.1546.20582
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 1546-1562
• 关键词: Group buying; pricing; Demand uncertainty; quantity discounts; Price discovery; demand heterogeneity

摘要

Web-based group-buying mechanisms are being widely used for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions. We survey currently operational online group-buying markets, and then study this phenomenon using analytical models. We build on the literatures in information economics and operations management in our analytical model of a monopolist offering Web-based group-buying under different kinds of demand uncertainty. We derive the monopolist's optimal group-buying schedule under varying conditions of heterogeneity in the demand regimes, and compare its profits with those that obtain under the more conventional posted-price mechanism. We further study the impact of production postponement by endogenizing the timing of the pricing and production decisions in a two-stage game between the monopolist and buyers. Our results have implications for firms' choice of price-discovery mechanisms in e-markets, and for the scheduling of production and pricing. decisions in the presence (and absence) of scale economies of production.