tyc1286太阳成集团青年博士学术工作坊 (第五期）

讲座题目：Behaviour-Based Pricing for Competing Firms Facing Variety-Seeking Consumers

主讲嘉宾： 张汀

时间：2024年6月14日（星期五 ）下午13:30—15:00

地点：tyc1286太阳成集团304会议室

欢迎感兴趣的师生参加聆听！

tyc1286太阳成集团

2024年6月13日

主讲嘉宾简介

Ting Zhang is a Lecturer in Operations Analytics at Bristol University. She obtained PhD degrees from City University of Hong Kong and University of Science and Technology of China. Her research interests include multi-channel supply chains, behavioral operations management, and platform operations. She has published research papers in well-established leading refereed journals, such as European Journal of Operational Research, Naval Research Logistics, Decision Sciences, International Journal of Production Research, Annals of Operations Research, Journal of the Operational Research Society, and Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review. She served as a guest editor of Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review and reviewed papers for many leading journals.

讲座主要内容

Many firms adopt behavioural-based pricing (BBP) to customize prices for past and new consumers whose valuations of products are affected by the variety-seeking behaviour, i.e., the tendency to seek diversity in brand or product choices. This behaviour is prevalent in practice but under-explored in the literature. To study BBP in markets with variety-seeking consumers, we build a two-period model comprising two competing firms. We find that when the firms adopt BBP, a larger consumer’s variety-seeking degree mitigates the firms’ first-period price competition, leading to higher profits for the firms. When the consumer’s variety-seeking degree is high, with BBP, the firms’ profits will be higher and consumer welfare will be lower than those without BBP. If a firm unilaterally adopts BBP, its competitor will be better off when the consumer’s variety-seeking degree is high. If the firms can strategically choose to adopt BBP or not, the asymmetric equilibrium may occur, in which only one firm will adopt BBP. The firms may strategically adopt BBP without actually price-discriminating consumers because the firms’ price-discrimination potential can mitigate their first-period competition. If the consumer’s variety-seeking degree is high, the firms’ profits when BBP is (exogenously) feasible will be higher than those when BBP is (exogenously) infeasible, where the firms’ gains from the feasibility of BBP increase in the consumer’s variety-seeking degree. With behavioural-based personalized pricing, i.e., when the firms have the capability of charging personalized prices to past consumers, the firms’ profits increase in the consumer’s variety-seeking degree. With behavioural-based services, i.e., when the firms can offer additional services to past consumers, as the consumer’s variety-seeking degree increases, the firms’ service levels decrease, and their profits first decrease and then increase. These findings uncover the different characteristics of BBP and help explain many real-world operations.