报告时间：8月29日16:00-17:30

报告地点：管楼G416

报告题目：Behaviour-Based Pricing for Competing Firms Facing Variety-Seeking Consumers

报告摘要

Many firms adopt behavioural-based pricing (BBP) whereby they charge past and new customers different prices 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 gaming model comprising two competing firms. We show that the consumer’s variety-seeking behaviour will only benefit the firm which adopts BBP. In particular, with BBP, the firms’ profits increase in the consumer’s variety-seeking degree. 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. Counter-intuitively, if a firm unilaterally adopts BBP, its competitor will be better off if the consumer’s variety-seeking degree is high. In equilibrium, only one (resp. no, both) firm(s) will adopt BBP if the consumer’s variety-seeking degree is low (resp. intermediate, high). If the consumer’s variety-seeking degree is high, the firms’ profits when BBP is feasible (such that the firms can choose to adopt BBP or not) will be higher than those when BBP is infeasible (such that no firms can adopt BBP), where the firms’ gains from the feasibility of BBP increase in the consumer’s variety-seeking degree. Moreover, we find that with behavioural-based personalized pricing, i.e., when the firms can charge personalized prices to past customers, their profits increase in the consumer’s variety-seeking degree. With behavioural-based services, i.e., when the firms can offer additional services to past customers, 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 associated with BBP.

报告人简介

张汀，英国布里斯托尔大学商学院运营分析讲师，于2017年分别在香港城市大学和中国科技大学获得博士学位。主要研究方向包括多渠道供应链、行为运营管理和平台运营等。在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、Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review等主流学术期刊发表学术论文多篇。曾担任Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review的客座编辑。