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Group-buying and channel coordination under asymmetric information

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  • Tran, Thanh
  • Desiraju, Ramarao

Abstract

Social media and improvements in technology allow retailers to offer a group-buying option to consumers in a variety of markets. Extant research shows that when consumers are sufficiently heterogeneous, group-buying helps a retailer practice price discrimination. Our paper examines when a manufacturer may prefer its reseller to employ the group-buying mechanism in conjunction with a traditional posted price. In our model, the retailer is privately informed about market heterogeneity, which is summarized via the relative size and the level of price sensitivity of two consumer segments. We show that any value to the manufacturer, of requiring the retailer to offer group-buying, revolves around how profitability varies with market heterogeneity. Our principal finding is that group-buying benefits the manufacturer more when the retailer is privately informed about market size than about the level of consumer price sensitivity.

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  • Tran, Thanh & Desiraju, Ramarao, 2017. "Group-buying and channel coordination under asymmetric information," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(1), pages 68-75.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:256:y:2017:i:1:p:68-75
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2016.05.054
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    3. Caixia Hao & Lei Yang, 2024. "Fission marketing on social media platforms with consumer sentiment considerations," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 2143-2173, September.
    4. Singham, D.I., 2019. "Sample average approximation for the continuous type principal-agent problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 275(3), pages 1050-1057.
    5. Huang, Yeu-Shiang & Ho, Jyh-Wen & Lee, Chang-Lin, 2024. "Group buying in multiple channels with consideration of heterogeneous customers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    6. Guanqun Ni, 2019. "A pricing model for group buying based on network effects," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-18, January.

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