Group Buying on the Web: A Comparison of Price-Discovery Mechanisms
通过分析模型研究垄断企业在需求不确定下采用网络团购机制的最优定价，并与传统标价机制比较利润，探讨生产延迟对定价和生产决策的影响，为企业选择电子市场价格发现机制提供参考。
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.