Optimal information disclosure strategies for a retail platform in the blockchain technology era
研究了零售平台在区块链技术下自愿披露产品质量信息时，信息披露策略对定价和消费者深思熟虑决策的影响，发现披露成本高低决定了平台是刺激还是阻止消费者深思熟虑。
This paper considers a retail platform selling a product to consumers and voluntarily discloses product quality information by using blockchain technology (BCT). Consumers decide whether to deliberate before making purchase decisions. We develop an analytical model to explore the effects of information disclosure strategies on the retail platform’s pricing and consumers’ deliberation decisions. Some interesting results are obtained. First, regardless of the information disclosure strategy, consumers’ deliberation and purchasing decisions depend on the deliberation cost and product price. Consumers will only deliberate if the price is at the medium level and the deliberation cost is not too high. Second, when the disclosure cost is high, the retail platform either stimulates or prevents consumer deliberation; however, when the disclosure cost is at a medium interval, the retail platform’s pricing decision depends on its information disclosure strategy. Specifically, when disclosing quality information, the retail platform will implement the stimulated deliberation (SD) or prevented deliberation (PD) strategy and will never adopt the sold at a low price (SL) strategy; however, when quality information is withheld, the retail platform will only adopt the PD strategy. Third, we identify the conditions under which the retail platform should disclose quality information when facing different disclosure costs.