استراتژی های قیمت گذاری در تجارت الکترونیک B2C : رویکردهای تحلیلی و تجربی

Although electronic commerce is regarded as a revolution that has transformed the structure of business and the mechanisms of economic systems, research on price competition and strategic behaviors in electronic commerce has been conducted through empirical approaches, yielding conflicting results. Considering the development of technologies supporting electronic commerce, there have been few analytical analyses. In addition, the few existing analytical analyses have not addressed competition behaviors and strategic implications in complex business environments, where conventional offline firms and Internet firms coexist. Also, previous empirical analyses have focused on where products are priced higher (or lower) rather than finding reasons for those differences. This paper analyzes pricing strategies between conventional offline firms and online firms through a theoretical approach and empirical analysis, and draw some strategic implications with some remarks related to welfare aspects. Especially, the empirical study analyzes whether factors such as the size of market and product characteristics are related to price differences between offline and online channels through statistically testing the main results of the analytical analysis rather than just finding which products are higher in prices depending on channels.

The Internet has fundamentally changed the environment of business, offering business and consumers a powerful communication channel and making it possible for these two entities to come together in more efficient ways by creating new marketplaces. The Internet offers consumers greater benefits from increased information and lower transaction costs, including search costs, and a wider set of choices than those available in the traditional economic environment. It also improves the consumer's bargaining position with vendors, both online and via traditional channels. From the corporate point of view, the Internet provides opportunities to access global markets without having to incur large entry costs or having to keep sizable inventories, as well as improving targeted advertising and sales efforts [1]. While recent research in electronic commerce has been conducted in a variety of areas, there has been little theoretical research on price competition and strategic behaviors. Although electronic commerce is regarded as a revolution that has transformed the structure of business and the mechanisms of economic systems, research on price competition and strategic behaviors in electronic commerce has been conducted through empirical approaches, yielding conflicting results. Considering the development of technologies supporting electronic commerce, there have been few analytical analyses. In addition, the few existing analytical analyses have not addressed competition behaviors and strategic implications in complex business environments, where conventional offline firms and Internet firms coexist. Also, previous empirical analyses have focused on where products are priced higher (or lower) rather than finding reasons for those differences. The purpose of this study is to analyze pricing strategies between conventional offline firms and online firms through a theoretical approach and empirical analysis, and draw some important implications. In addition we make some remarks related to welfare aspects. Especially, the empirical study analyzes whether factors such as the size of market and product characteristics are related to price differences between offline and online channels through statistically testing the main results of the analytical analysis rather than just finding which products are higher in prices depending on channels. The analysis of this paper presents several findings. The analysis of competition between conventional offline and online firms reveals why the equilibrium prices are different in electronic commerce despite products being physically homogeneous. The findings indicate that as more consumers have access to the Internet, both offline and online prices drop. If convenience associated with the online purchase becomes greater, the online price tends to exceed the offline price. In addition, the analysis finds that the profits of the online firm can increase as more consumers have Internet access if the online firm is relatively more efficient. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 is a background and literature review. Section 3 presents a duopoly model between a conventional offline firm and a pure online firm. Section 4 explores equilibrium prices and draws some implications and provides remarks on the welfare of the producer and the consumer. In Section 5 we analyze the empirical evidence. Conclusions and discussion of future areas of research are provided in the final section.

In this paper, we have analyzed pricing strategies between conventional offline firms and pure online firms through analytic and empirical analyses. We have drawn some important conclusions through analytic analyses. First, prices, both offline and online, drop as more consumers have access to the Internet. Second, as the online market matures or more consumers are connected to the Internet, the prices in online firms tend to be higher than in conventional offline firms. Third, if convenience associated with the online purchase increases, the online price tends to exceed the offline price. Finally, the profit of a typical offline firm decreases as more consumers gain access to the Internet, while the profit of a typical online firm can increase if the online firm is relatively efficient. Also, our empirical study seems to support our analytical results. First, we find that the price of products with high customer costs such as perfumes, flowers, clothes, etc tends to be lower than the offline store because consumers face some costs of assessing quality uncertainty from tangibility, seeing, feeling. At the same reason, the price of products with lower customer costs such as products with advantages in digital characteristics and no costs for assessing quality can be higher priced in online market. Second, we also found that products with high sales portion among total market, such as computers and homewares, tend to have higher prices online. However, our study has some limitations. For future analytical study, we anticipate conducting research on strategic interaction between offline and online firms when the offline firm enters the online market. Also, for the future empirical study, it is considered that the research on price differences depending on the types of retailers such as specialty stores, general malls, depart stores as well as hybrid retailer which products are sold through conventional and Internet distribution channels. And if it possible, it is needed to analyze more extensive product categories and determine how the prices vary between offline and online firms according to product categories. And we did not assess the relationship between prices and electronic market maturity, thus, in order to do so, one would ideally follow a time series of prices and Internet usage.