E-retailers´quality-based price discrimination strategies under multiple shipping options

Author

Jing, Pan ; Peng, Wang

Author_Institution

Sch. of Econ.&Trade, Hunan Univ., Changsha, China

Volume

1

fYear

2010

fDate

30-31 May 2010

Firstpage

183

Lastpage

186

Abstract

In e-commerce, shipping is bundled with the purchase of product, which allows e-retailers to create vertical quality differentiation by offering multiple shipping options with some amount of market power, so it is possible for online sellers to use quality-variant of the same basic product to segment the market of heterogeneous consumers. This paper tests quality-based price discrimination model using data on shipping schedules offered by e-retailers. The results indicate that the quality of a slow shipping option is significantly associated with prices of faster shipping options in consistent with prediction of the price discrimination model.

Keywords

electronic commerce; goods distribution; pricing; purchasing; retailing; e-commerce; e-retailers; multiple shipping options; product purchase; quality-based price discrimination strategies; Assembly; Books; CD recording; Costs; Degradation; Internet; Predictive models; Testing; Time measurement; Velocity measurement; e-retailer; online retailing; quality-based price discrimination; shipping option;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Networking and Digital Society (ICNDS), 2010 2nd International Conference on

Conference_Location

Wenzhou

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-5162-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICNDS.2010.5479598

Filename

5479598