Advance Selling for Services
研究了消费者对未来消费状态不确定时，预售如何帮助卖家在信息劣势较小的预售期获利，并分析了新技术如何降低预售成本、抑制套利从而提升盈利性。
Advance selling can be profitable when consumers are uncertain about their future consumption state. At the time of consumption, that uncertainty is resolved, but buyer states still remain unobservable to sellers. Consequently, buyer and seller information is symmetric in advance but asymmetric at consumption (i.e., sellers have an informational disadvantage in the consumption period relative to the advance period). Therefore, sellers can profit from transacting in the advance period when they are at less of a disadvantage. New technologies (e.g., biometrics, electronic tickets, smart cards, online prepayments, and new e-commerce technologies) also enhance the profitability of advance selling by lowering advance-selling costs and restraining arbitrage.