Firm Strategies in the 'Mid Tail' of Platform-Based Retailing
Firm Strategies in the 'Mid Tail' of Platform-Based Retailing
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DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.1633150
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发表时间：
2010-12
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Baojun Jiang;Kinshuk Jerath;K. Srinivasan
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文献类型：
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作者：
Baojun Jiang;Kinshuk Jerath;K. Srinivasan
虽然亚马逊的零售平台上销售着数百万种产品，但亚马逊自身仅库存和销售其中极小的一部分。这些产品大多由第三方卖家销售，他们每售出一件商品都要向亚马逊支付一笔费用。经验证据清楚地表明，亚马逊倾向于销售高需求的产品，而将长尾产品留给独立卖家提供。我们研究像亚马逊这样的平台所有者，在面临事前需求不确定性的情况下，如何从这些卖家的早期销售中策略性地了解哪些“中尾”产品值得其直接销售，哪些最好留给其他卖家销售。然而，平台所有者对成功产品的“择优挑选”，会使独立卖家有动机通过降低服务水平（平台所有者无法观察到）来减少销售额，从而掩盖高需求。我们使用一个包含两种类型卖家（一种是高需求卖家，一种是低需求卖家）的博弈论模型，分析了平台所有者和独立卖家之间的这种策略性互动。我们表明，平台所有者识别卖家的需求并不总是最优的。有趣的是，平台所有者保留销售独立卖家产品的选择权可能会使其自身情况更糟，而两种类型的卖家都可能从平台所有者的进入威胁中获益。平台所有者的进入选择权可能会在早期减少消费者剩余，尽管它会在后期增加消费者剩余。我们还研究了消费者评价如何影响市场结果。
While millions of products are sold on its retail platform, Amazon.com itself stocks and sells only a very small fraction of them. Most of these products are sold by third-party sellers who pay Amazon a fee for each unit sold. Empirical evidence clearly suggests that Amazon tends to sell high-demand products and leave long-tail products for independent sellers to offer. We investigate how a platform owner such as Amazon, facing ex ante demand uncertainty, may strategically learn from these sellers' early sales which of the “mid-tail” products are worthwhile for its direct selling and which are best left for others to sell. The platform owner's “cherry-picking” of the successful products, however, gives an independent seller the incentive to mask any high demand by lowering his sales with a reduced service level unobserved by the platform owner. We analyze this strategic interaction between a platform owner and an independent seller using a game-theoretic model with two types of sellers---one with high demand and one with low demand. We show that it may not always be optimal for the platform owner to identify the seller's demand. Interestingly, the platform owner may be worse off by retaining its option to sell the independent seller's product, whereas both types of sellers may benefit from the platform owner's threat of entry. The platform owner's entry option may reduce consumer surplus in the early period, although it increases consumer surplus in the later period. We also investigate how consumer reviews influence the market outcome.