Using online competitor's inventory information for pricing

Rajiv Dewan, Marshall Freimer, Yabing Jiang

Research output: Chapter in Book/Entry/PoemConference contribution

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Information displayed on an e-commerce site can be used not just by the intended customers but also by competitors. In the paper, we examine the effect of such proactive information use in the setting of e-commerce retailing where duopoly e-tailers set their prices of a commodity that is in short supply. While e-tailers enhance their service quality by making stockout information available online, that inventory information could also be used by competitors to determine their prices. Each e-tailer can launch software agents to detect its competitor's inventory position and make its price decision contingent on that position. We show that when customer reservation value is relatively high, and e-tailers do not resemble each other in terms of fill rate, both e-tailers choose to adopt the software agent technology and price dynamically at equilibrium. The high availability e-tailer can charge higher prices and enjoy a higher profit level than the low availability e-tailer. More customers prefer to visit the high fill rate e-tailer first under the dynamic pricing scheme than under the static pricing scheme. Because total search costs are reduced, social welfare is improved under the new dynamic pricing scheme.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2007, HICSS'07
DOIs
StatePublished - 2007
Externally publishedYes
Event40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2007, HICSS'07 - Big Island, HI, United States
Duration: Jan 3 2007Jan 6 2007

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
ISSN (Print)1530-1605

Other

Other40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 2007, HICSS'07
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityBig Island, HI
Period1/3/071/6/07

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Engineering

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