考虑跟随企业搭便车行为的创新企业定价策略研究

文章通过构建博弈模型探讨了存在跟随企业搭便车行为时创新企业的定价策略及定价模式(稳定定价或动态定价),并分析了忠实消费者规模及需求溢出效应等特征对创新企业定价决策与利润的影响.结果表明,无论创新企业采用稳定定价或动态定价模式,跟随企业搭便车行为均会降低创新企业利润,需求溢出效应的增强总能使创新企业和跟随企业均获得更高的利润.动态定价模式下,当需求溢出效应较大时,创新企业会采用渗透定价策略;反之会采用撇脂定价策略.无论垄断或竞争市场情形下,均存在消费者规模阈值效应,即创新企业的利润随着忠实消费者规模的增大而先增大后减小.垄断市场下,动态定价模式能让创新企业获得更高利润;竞争市场下,当跟随企业质量处于较中间水平时,稳定定价模式能让创新企业获得更多优势.

Pricing Strategies for Innovators in the Presence of Free-Riders

This paper develops a theoretical model to examine the optimal pricing strategies for innovators in the presence of free-riders by considering two salient features,i.e.,loyal consumers and demand spillover effect.The innovator sells a new product to loyal consumers in the first period and competes with the copycat for regular consumers in the second period.The demand spillover generated by loyal consumers increases consumers’ purchasing desire,but the innovator may end up inadvertently sharing the benefits with the copycat.Our equilibrium analysis shows that,the copycat’s free-riding behavior always reduces the innovator’s profit,whereas the demand spillover effect always increases the profits of both the innovator and the copycat.Under the dynamic pricing strategy,the innovator tends to adopt penetration pricing when the demand spillover effect is relatively large;and skimming pricing otherwise.Interestingly,the impact of loyal consumers demonstrates a threshold effect that the innovator’s profit first increases and then decreases with the size of loyal consumers.Finally,different from the monopoly situation where the dynamic pricing strategy always generates a higher profit,the innovator is more beneficial to adopt the stable pricing strategy when the copycat’s product quality is moderate.