Dynamic selling strategy for a firm under asymmetric information: Direct selling vs. agent selling
Dynamic selling strategy for a firm under asymmetric information: Direct selling vs. agent selling
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DOI：
10.1016/j.ijpe.2018.07.034
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发表时间：
2018-10
影响因子：
12
通讯作者：
C. Dong;Yunpeng Yang;Ming Zhao
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
C. Dong;Yunpeng Yang;Ming Zhao
本文研究了在市场和产品信息不对称的两个时期内，企业的动态销售策略。在每个阶段，公司可以直接向客户销售产品，即直接销售，或通过亚马逊和eBay等中介零售商，即代理销售。在销售旺季之前，该公司不确定市场规模，客户也不知道产品是否符合他们的口味。然而，通过直接与客户互动，直销的企业或代理销售的零售商将在第一阶段结束时获得额外的市场信息。同时，如果第一阶段采用代理销售，则第二阶段的客户可以通过访问先前客户发布的评论来解决其产品匹配的不确定性；我们证明，如果企业和零售商之间不共享额外的市场信息，则第二阶段的代理销售永远不是最优的。然而，由于企业的市场不确定性和客户的产品匹配不确定性的相对影响，直销和代理销售在第一阶段都可能是最优的。有趣的是，与传统智慧相反，我们表明，在信息共享的情况下，零售商总是会与公司共享额外的市场信息。此外，在均衡中，代理销售和直销在这两个时期都可能是最优的，这取决于从额外的市场信息中获得的好处。
In this paper, we study the dynamic selling strategy for a firm under asymmetric market and product information over two periods. In each period, the firm can sell the product directly to customers, i.e.,direct selling, or through an intermediary retailer such as Amazon and eBay, i.e.,agent selling. Before the selling season, the firm is uncertain about the market size and the customers are unaware of whether the product matches their tastes. However, by directly interacting with the customers, the firm under direct selling or the retailer under agent selling will obtain additional market information at the end of the first period. Meanwhile, customers in the second period can resolve their product fit uncertainty by accessing the review comments posted by previous customers, if agent selling is adopted in the first period.We show that if the firm and retailer do not share the additional market information with each other, agent selling is never optimal in the second period. However, both direct selling and agent selling may be optimal in the first period, due to the relative effects of the firm's market uncertainty and customers' product fit uncertainty. Interestingly, converse to traditional wisdom, we show that with information sharing, the retailer will always share the additional market information with the firm. Furthermore, in equilibrium, both agent selling and direct selling may be optimal in both periods, depending on the benefit from the additional market information.