دانلود رایگان مقاله اثرات کانال "عدم چانه زنی" در راهبردهای بازاریابی

Abstract

As sellers increasingly turn to multi-channel retailing, the opportunity to implement different pricing policies has grown. With the advent of the internet, many traditionally bargained products such as automobiles, jewelry, watches, appliances and furniture are now being offered online at a fixed pre-determined price. We explore the strategy of simultaneously offering two pricing formats (fixed and bargained) via two different channels (online and brick and mortar) and find that in a market where there are two types of consumers—those with a high cost of haggling and others with a lower cost—a dual-pricing strategy is optimal only when there are enough high haggling-cost consumers, but not too many, and when the haggling costs between the two types of consumers are sufficiently different. We also find that it is optimal for the seller to specify a higher-than-cost minimum acceptable price as the price floor of bargaining. By doing so, the seller increases the bargained price by complementing the salesperson's bargaining ability, and also softens the internal competition between the two channels. Finally, we find that, surprisingly, the dual-pricing strategy may serve fewer customers while still being more profitable than a single price structure. The implications for consumer surplus are also explored.

4. Summary and conclusions

The conventional wisdom in setting prices is that a seller is better off if it is able to price-discriminate among consumers, using mechanisms such as bargaining. Offering a fixed price at the same time appears to reduce the advantage of price discrimination because buyers know the maximum price that can be charged. As a result, the recent emergence of a no-haggle, fixed price in markets that have traditionally relied on bargaining cannot be satisfactorily explained. Our research attempts to explain this phenomenon. In particular, we explore the strategic implications of offering consumers the choice between bargaining a price and accepting a fixed, nohaggle price through such channels as the internet. We compare the profitability of three channel structures (bargaining only, fixed-price only and a dual-channel structure). Our findings suggest that consumer haggling cost plays a critical role in determining when a particular channel structure is optimal. We find that a dual channel is not always optimal: when either high or low haggling-cost consumers account for a large proportion of the population, or when they do not have very different haggling costs, a single channel is optimal. Our conclusions provide guidance to sellers: no one strategy is always the best, as optimization depends upon the magnitude and dispersion of haggling costs, which in turn may be related to such factors as customer bargaining experience, income and time constraints.