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Pricing of Information Products on Online Servers: Issues, Models, and Analysis

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  • Sanjay Jain

    (The Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742)

  • P. K. Kannan

    (The Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742)

Abstract

Online information servers that provide access to diverse databases where users can search for, browse through, and download the information they need have been rapidly increasing in number in the past few years. Online vendors have traditionally charged users for information on the based on the length of the time they were connected to the databases. With hardware and software advances, many online servers have recently started changing their pricing strategies to search-based and/or subscription-fee pricing. This paper examines the various issues involved in pricing these information products, and presents an economic approach to analyze conditions under which the various pricing schemes may prove optimal for the online servers. Our results show that the variation in consumer expertise and valuation of information affects the choice of a pricing strategy by the server. We present general conditions under which subscription-fee pricing is optimal even when consumer demand is inelastic. We also find that, given the cost structures characterizing the market, undifferentiated online servers can compete and coexist in the market each making positive profits. We show that in a competitive setting an increase in costs of online servers can sometimes benefit them by enabling them to differentiate themselves. Our results offer insights into the trends in pricing strategies and may provide an explanation as to why many servers may persist with connect-time strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Sanjay Jain & P. K. Kannan, 2002. "Pricing of Information Products on Online Servers: Issues, Models, and Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(9), pages 1123-1142, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:48:y:2002:i:9:p:1123-1142
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.48.9.1123.178
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Li, Minqiang & Feng, Haiyang & Chen, Fuzan & Kou, Jisong, 2013. "Numerical investigation on mixed bundling and pricing of information products," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 560-571.
    3. Li Chen, 2016. "Selling or Renting: Competition of Electronic Book Retailers," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 6(5), pages 1-2.
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    5. Adhikari, Arnab & Sharma, Megha & Basu, Sumanta & Jha, Ashish Kumar, 2022. "Uniform or spatially differentiated? Pricing Strategies for Information Goods under simultaneous and sequential decision-making in multi-market context," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Yuanchun Jiang & Jennifer Shang & Chris F. Kemerer & Yezheng Liu, 2011. "Optimizing E-tailer Profits and Customer Savings: Pricing Multistage Customized Online Bundles," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(4), pages 737-752, July.
    7. Yifan Dou & Yu Jeffrey Hu & D. J. Wu, 2017. "Selling or Leasing? Pricing Information Goods with Depreciation of Consumer Valuation," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 585-602, September.
    8. Ke-Wei Huang & Arun Sundararajan, 2011. "Pricing Digital Goods: Discontinuous Costs and Shared Infrastructure," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(4), pages 721-738, December.
    9. Arto Ojala & Pasi Tyrväinen, 2006. "Business models and market entry mode choice of small software firms," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 69-81, September.
    10. 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.
    11. Ashish Arora & Andrea Fosfuri, 2005. "Pricing Diagnostic Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(7), pages 1092-1100, July.
    12. Mingdi Xin & Arun Sundararajan, 2020. "Nonlinear Pricing of Software with Local Demand Inelasticity," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 1224-1239, December.
    13. Esther Gal-Or & Qiaoni Shi, 2022. "Designing Entry Strategies for Subscription Platforms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7597-7613, October.
    14. Mark Bender & Esther Gal‐Or & Tansev Geylani, 2022. "The emergence of streaming and its impact on pricing and product strategies of content providers," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(6), pages 2148-2171, September.
    15. Roland T. Rust & Tuck Siong Chung, 2006. "Marketing Models of Service and Relationships," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 560-580, 11-12.
    16. Sridhar Balasubramanian & Shantanu Bhattacharya & Vish V. Krishnan, 2015. "Pricing Information Goods: A Strategic Analysis of the Selling and Pay-per-Use Mechanisms," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(2), pages 218-234, March.
    17. Vidyanand Choudhary, 2010. "Use of Pricing Schemes for Differentiating Information Goods," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 78-92, March.
    18. Ramnath K. Chellappa & Shivendu Shivendu, 2010. "Mechanism Design for "Free" but "No Free Disposal" Services: The Economics of Personalization Under Privacy Concerns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(10), pages 1766-1780, October.
    19. Chia-Wei Kuo & Kwei-Long Huang & Chao-Lung Yang, 2017. "Optimal contract design for cloud computing service with resource service guarantee," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(9), pages 1030-1044, September.
    20. Manish Gangwar & Hemant K. Bhargava, 2023. "Pricing on‐demand services: Alternative ways of combining usage and access fees," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(1), pages 11-27, January.
    21. Rajiv D. Banker & Robert J. Kauffman, 2004. "50th Anniversary Article: The Evolution of Research on Information Systems: A Fiftieth-Year Survey of the Literature in Management Science," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(3), pages 281-298, March.
    22. Ying-Ju Chen & Ke-Wei Huang, 2016. "Pricing Data Services: Pricing by Minutes, by Gigs, or by Megabytes per Second?," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 596-617.
    23. Abhijit Dutt & Hemant Jain & Sanjeev Kumar, 2018. "Providing Software as a Service: a design decision(s) model," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 327-356, May.
    24. Basu, Sumanta & Chakraborty, Soumyakanti & Sharma, Megha, 2015. "Pricing cloud services—the impact of broadband quality," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 96-114.

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