IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/mktlet/v34y2023i4d10.1007_s11002-022-09658-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Profitability of behavior-based price discrimination

Author

Listed:
  • Sumit Shrivastav

    (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR))

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the profitability of behavior-based price discrimination in a duopoly model with switching costs. We find that when firms price discriminate based on consumers’ preferences, and remain unaware of their switching costs, price discrimination boosts the equilibrium profits compared to uniform pricing, when the heterogeneity in the consumers’ preferences is not too large compared to that in the switching costs. This result qualitatively holds even in a two-period model with informed and forward-looking consumers.

Suggested Citation

  • Sumit Shrivastav, 2023. "Profitability of behavior-based price discrimination," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 535-547, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:mktlet:v:34:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s11002-022-09658-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s11002-022-09658-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11002-022-09658-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11002-022-09658-z?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amit Pazgal & David Soberman, 2008. "Behavior-Based Discrimination: Is It a Winning Play, and If So, When?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(6), pages 977-994, 11-12.
    2. Greg Shaffer & Z. John Zhang, 1995. "Competitive Coupon Targeting," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 395-416.
    3. Yuxin Chen & Ganesh Iyer, 2002. "Research Note Consumer Addressability and Customized Pricing," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(2), pages 197-208, November.
    4. Drew Fudenberg & Jean Tirole, 2000. "Customer Poaching and Brand Switching," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(4), pages 634-657, Winter.
    5. David Bounie & Antoine Dubus & Patrick Waelbroeck, 2021. "Selling strategic information in digital competitive markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(2), pages 283-313, June.
    6. Thisse, Jacques-Francois & Vives, Xavier, 1988. "On the Strategic Choice of Spatial Price Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 122-137, March.
    7. Juanjuan Zhang, 2011. "The Perils of Behavior-Based Personalization," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 170-186, 01-02.
    8. Bernard Caillaud & Romain De Nijs, 2014. "Strategic Loyalty Reward in Dynamic Price Discrimination," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(5), pages 725-742, September.
    9. Tabuchi, Takatoshi, 1994. "Two-stage two-dimensional spatial competition between two firms," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 207-227, April.
    10. Yongmin Chen, 1997. "Paying Customers to Switch," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(4), pages 877-897, December.
    11. Oz Shy & Rune Stenbacka, 2016. "Customer Privacy and Competition," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 539-562, September.
    12. Shy, Oz & Stenbacka, Rune, 2013. "Investment in customer recognition and information exchange," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 92-106.
    13. Stefano Colombo, 2016. "Imperfect Behavior‐Based Price Discrimination," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 563-583, September.
    14. Esteves, Rosa-Branca, 2009. "Price discrimination with partial information: Does it pay off?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 28-31, October.
    15. Bita Hajihashemi & Amin Sayedi & Jeffrey D. Shulman, 2022. "The Perils of Personalized Pricing with Network Effects," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(3), pages 477-500, May.
    16. Rosa Branca Esteves, 2009. "A Survey on the Economics of Behaviour-Based Price Discrimination," NIPE Working Papers 5/2009, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    17. Chen, Yuxin & Zhang, Z. John, 2009. "Dynamic targeted pricing with strategic consumers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 43-50, January.
    18. Jiwoong Shin & K. Sudhir, 2010. "A Customer Management Dilemma: When Is It Profitable to Reward One's Own Customers?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 671-689, 07-08.
    19. J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 1999. "Dynamic Competition with Customer Recognition," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(4), pages 604-631, Winter.
    20. Yuxin Chen & Chakravarthi Narasimhan & Z. John Zhang, 2001. "Individual Marketing with Imperfect Targetability," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 23-41, November.
    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. Flavio Pino, 2022. "The microeconomics of data – a survey," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 49(3), pages 635-665, September.
    2. Choe, Chongwoo & Matsushima, Noriaki & Tremblay, Mark J., 2022. "Behavior-based personalized pricing: When firms can share customer information," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. De Nijs, Romain, 2017. "Behavior-based price discrimination and customer information sharing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 319-334.
    4. Juanjuan Zhang, 2011. "The Perils of Behavior-Based Personalization," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 170-186, 01-02.
    5. Ki-Eun Rhee & Raphael Thomadsen, 2017. "Behavior-Based Pricing in Vertically Differentiated Industries," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(8), pages 2729-2740, August.
    6. Chongwoo Choe & Stephen King & Noriaki Matsushima, 2018. "Pricing with Cookies: Behavior-Based Price Discrimination and Spatial Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(12), pages 5669-5687, December.
    7. Yiquan Gu & Leonardo Madio & Carlo Reggiani, 2019. "Exclusive Data, Price Manipulation and Market Leadership," CESifo Working Paper Series 7853, CESifo.
    8. Baye, Irina & Reiz, Tim & Sapi, Geza, 2018. "Customer recognition and mobile geo-targeting," DICE Discussion Papers 285, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    9. Esteves, Rosa-Branca, 2010. "Pricing with customer recognition," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 669-681, November.
    10. Bita Hajihashemi & Amin Sayedi & Jeffrey D. Shulman, 2022. "The Perils of Personalized Pricing with Network Effects," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(3), pages 477-500, May.
    11. Sumit Shrivastav, 2021. "Price discrimination with imperfect consumer recognition," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2021-017, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    12. Rosa‐Branca Esteves & Qihong Liu & Jie Shuai, 2022. "Behavior‐based price discrimination with nonuniform distribution of consumer preferences," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 324-355, April.
    13. Luo, Meiling & Li, Gang & Chen, Xudong, 2021. "Competitive location-based mobile coupon targeting strategy," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    14. Irina Baye & Philip Hanspach & Tim Reiz & Geza Sapi, 2024. "Customer Recognition and Mobile Geo-Targeting," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 64(4), pages 615-644, June.
    15. Stefano Colombo, 2018. "Behavior‐ and characteristic‐based price discrimination," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 237-250, June.
    16. Bernard Caillaud & Romain de Nijs, 2011. "Strategic loyalty reward in dynamic price Discrimination," PSE Working Papers halshs-00622291, HAL.
    17. Shrivastav, Sumit, 2023. "Information, mis-information, and history-based price discrimination in a duopoly," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    18. Jeong, Yuncheol & Maruyama, Masayoshi, 2018. "Positioning and pricing strategies in a market with switching costs and staying costs," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 47-57.
    19. Zhijun Chen & Chongwoo Choe & Noriaki Matsushima, 2020. "Competitive Personalized Pricing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 4003-4023, September.
    20. Romain de Nijs, 2015. "Behavior-based price discrimination and customer information sharing," PSE Working Papers hal-01226250, HAL.

    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:kap:mktlet:v:34:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s11002-022-09658-z. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.