IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormksc/v26y2007i4p488-503.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Does Free Riding on Customer Service Affect Competition?

Author

Listed:
  • Jiwoong Shin

    (Yale School of Management, Yale University, 135 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520)

Abstract

The free-riding problem occurs if the presales activities needed to sell a product can be conducted separately from the actual sale of the product. Intuitively, free riding should hurt the retailer that provides that service, but the author shows analytically that free riding benefits not only the free-riding retailer, but also the retailer that provides the service when customers are heterogeneous in terms of their opportunity costs for shopping. The service-providing retailer has a postservice advantage, because customers who have resolved their matching uncertainty through sales service incur zero marginal shopping cost if they purchase from the service-providing retailer rather than the free-riding retailer. Moreover, allowing free riding gives the free rider less incentive to compete with the service provider on price, because many customers eventually will switch to it due to their own free riding. In turn, this induced soft strategic response enables the service provider to charge a higher price and enjoy the strictly positive profit that otherwise would have been wiped away by head-to-head price competition. Therefore, allowing free riding can be regarded as a necessary mechanism that prevents an aggressive response from another retailer and reduces the intensity of price competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiwoong Shin, 2007. "How Does Free Riding on Customer Service Affect Competition?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(4), pages 488-503, 07-08.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:26:y:2007:i:4:p:488-503
    DOI: 10.1287/mksc.1060.0252
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1060.0252
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mksc.1060.0252?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dennis W. Carlton & Judith A. Chevalier, 2001. "Free Riding and Sales Strategies for the Internet," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(4), pages 441-461, December.
    2. John G. Lynch , Jr. & Dan Ariely, 2000. "Wine Online: Search Costs Affect Competition on Price, Quality, and Distribution," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(1), pages 83-103, April.
    3. Birger Wernerfelt, 1994. "Selling Formats for Search Goods," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 13(3), pages 298-309.
    4. Rajiv Lal & Miklos Sarvary, 1999. "When and How Is the Internet Likely to Decrease Price Competition?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(4), pages 485-503.
    5. Anil Arya & Brian Mittendorf, 2006. "Benefits of Channel Discord in the Sale of Durable Goods," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(1), pages 91-96, 01-02.
    6. Diamond, Peter A., 1971. "A model of price adjustment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 156-168, June.
    7. repec:bla:jindec:v:49:y:2001:i:4:p:441-61 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Jagmohan Raju & Z. John Zhang, 2005. "Channel Coordination in the Presence of a Dominant Retailer," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 254-262, February.
    9. David Godes, 2003. "In the Eye of the Beholder: An Analysis of the Relative Value of a Top Sales Rep Across Firms and Products," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 161-187, May.
    10. Frank M. Bass & Anand Krishnamoorthy & Ashutosh Prasad & Suresh P. Sethi, 2005. "Generic and Brand Advertising Strategies in a Dynamic Duopoly," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(4), pages 556-568, February.
    11. Dazhong Wu & Gautam Ray & Xianjun Geng & Andrew Whinston, 2004. "Implications of Reduced Search Cost and Free Riding in E-Commerce," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 255-262, November.
    12. J. Yannis Bakos, 1997. "Reducing Buyer Search Costs: Implications for Electronic Marketplaces," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(12), pages 1676-1692, December.
    13. Vishal P. Singh & Karsten T. Hansen & Robert C. Blattberg, 2006. "Market Entry and Consumer Behavior: An Investigation of a Wal-Mart Supercenter," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(5), pages 457-476, September.
    14. Chakravarthi Narasimhan, 1984. "A Price Discrimination Theory of Coupons," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(2), pages 128-147.
    15. Sridhar Balasubramanian, 1998. "Mail versus Mall: A Strategic Analysis of Competition between Direct Marketers and Conventional Retailers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(3), pages 181-195.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bing Jing, 2018. "Showrooming and Webrooming: Information Externalities Between Online and Offline Sellers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(3), pages 469-483, May.
    2. Dmitri Kuksov, 2004. "Buyer Search Costs and Endogenous Product Design," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 490-499, May.
    3. Amit Mehra & Subodha Kumar & Jagmohan S. Raju, 2018. "Competitive Strategies for Brick-and-Mortar Stores to Counter “Showrooming”," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(7), pages 3076-3090, July.
    4. Xubing Zhang, 2009. "Retailers' Multichannel and Price Advertising Strategies," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(6), pages 1080-1094, 11-12.
    5. Dazhong Wu & Gautam Ray & Xianjun Geng & Andrew Whinston, 2004. "Implications of Reduced Search Cost and Free Riding in E-Commerce," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 255-262, November.
    6. Grewal, Dhruv & Janakiraman, Ramkumar & Kalyanam, Kirthi & Kannan, P.K. & Ratchford, Brian & Song, Reo & Tolerico, Stephen, 2010. "Strategic Online and Offline Retail Pricing: A Review and Research Agenda," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 138-154.
    7. Zhang, Xubing & Jiang, Bo, 2014. "Increasing Price Transparency: Implications of Consumer Price Posting for Consumers' Haggling Behavior and a Seller's Pricing Strategies," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 68-85.
    8. Umit Kucuk, S. & Maddux, Robert C., 2010. "The role of the Internet on free-riding: An exploratory study of the wallpaper industry," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 313-320.
    9. Anindya Ghose & Avi Goldfarb & Sang Pil Han, 2013. "How Is the Mobile Internet Different? Search Costs and Local Activities," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 613-631, September.
    10. Jeonghye Choi & David R. Bell & Leonard M. Lodish, 2012. "Traditional and IS-Enabled Customer Acquisition on the Internet," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(4), pages 754-769, April.
    11. Yan, Ruiliang & Ghose, Sanjoy, 2010. "Forecast information and traditional retailer performance in a dual-channel competitive market," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 77-83, January.
    12. Fay, Scott, 2008. "Selling an opaque product through an intermediary: The case of disguising one's product," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 59-75.
    13. Zhuang, Hejun & Popkowski Leszczyc, Peter T.L. & Lin, Yuanfang, 2018. "Why is Price Dispersion Higher Online than Offline? The Impact of Retailer Type and Shopping Risk on Price Dispersion," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 136-153.
    14. Charness, Gary & haruvy, Ernan & Sonsino, Doron, 2001. "Social Distance and Reciprocity: The Internet vs. the Laboratory," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt3dt073wb, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    15. Fei Gao & Vishal V. Agrawal & Shiliang Cui, 2022. "The Effect of Multichannel and Omnichannel Retailing on Physical Stores," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 809-826, February.
    16. Rajiv Dewan & Bing Jing & Abraham Seidmann, 2003. "Product Customization and Price Competition on the Internet," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(8), pages 1055-1070, August.
    17. Myung-Soo Lee & Brian Ratchford & Debrabrata Talukdar, 2001. "The Impact of the Internet on Information Search for Automobiles," Review of Marketing Science Working Papers 1-2-1011, Berkeley Electronic Press.
    18. Robert J. Kauffman & Charles A. Wood, 2007. "Follow the leader: price change timing in Internet-based selling," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 679-700.
    19. Elie Ofek & Zsolt Katona & Miklos Sarvary, 2011. ""Bricks and Clicks": The Impact of Product Returns on the Strategies of Multichannel Retailers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 42-60, 01-02.
    20. Cristina Mazón & Pedro Pereira, 2001. "Electronic commerce, consumer search and reailing cost reduction," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 0102, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:26:y:2007:i:4:p:488-503. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.