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Luxury goods, vertical restraints and internet sales

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  • Vitaly Pruzhansky

Abstract

We propose a model describing consumer demand for a luxury good, in which the perceived quality of the good is related to its scarcity. We use this model to analyze the optimal production and price setting decisions of a luxury good manufacturer and contrast them with the decisions that would be made by a social planner. We show that irrespective of the way social welfare is defined, a monopoly producer of the luxury good may select socially optimal prices and quantity. Thus the incentives of the monopolist and the social planner may to some extent be aligned. We also analyze whether the producer and social planner would be willing to sell the luxury good over the internet if this allowed to increase the number of potential customers for the product. We show that under reasonable assumptions the monopoly producer would not oppose the introduction of internet sales, whilst the social planner may do so, depending on the specification of the model’s parameters. This result is important in the light of the recent revision by the European Commission of its Guidelines on Vertical Restrains ( 2010 ). Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Vitaly Pruzhansky, 2014. "Luxury goods, vertical restraints and internet sales," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 227-246, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:38:y:2014:i:2:p:227-246
    DOI: 10.1007/s10657-012-9335-2
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    Cited by:

    1. Magdalena Helfrich & Fabian Herweg, 2017. "Salience in Retailing: Vertical Restraints on Internet Sales," CESifo Working Paper Series 6615, CESifo.
    2. Baker, Jeff & Ashill, Nick & Amer, Noha & Diab, Ekram, 2018. "The internet dilemma: An exploratory study of luxury firms’ usage of internet-based technologies," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 37-47.
    3. Helfrich, Magdalena & Herweg, Fabian, 2020. "Context-dependent preferences and retailing: Vertical restraints on internet sales," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Competition policy; e-Commerce; Internet; Vertical restraints; Selective distribution; L40; L42;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L40 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - General
    • L42 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Vertical Restraints; Resale Price Maintenance; Quantity Discounts

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