IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v233y2014i1p263-272.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pricing and market segmentation using opaque selling mechanisms

Author

Listed:
  • Anderson, Chris K.
  • Xie, Xiaoqing

Abstract

In opaque selling certain characteristics of the product or service are hidden from the consumer until after purchase, transforming a differentiated good into somewhat of a commodity. Opaque selling has become popular in service pricing as it allows firms to sell their differentiated products at higher prices to regular brand loyal customers while simultaneously selling to non-loyal customers at discounted prices. We develop a stylized model of consumer choice that illustrates the role of opaque selling in market segmentation. We model a firm selling a product via three selling channels: a regular full information channel, an opaque posted price channel and an opaque bidding channel where consumers specify the price they are willing to pay. We illustrate the segmentation created by opaque selling as well as compare optimal revenues and prices for sellers using regular full information channels with those using opaque selling mechanisms in conjunction with regular channels. We also study the segmentation and policy changes induced by capacity constraints.

Suggested Citation

  • Anderson, Chris K. & Xie, Xiaoqing, 2014. "Pricing and market segmentation using opaque selling mechanisms," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 233(1), pages 263-272.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:233:y:2014:i:1:p:263-272
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2013.08.018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221713006838
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2013.08.018?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dmitry Shapiro & Xianwen Shi, 2008. "Market Segmentation: The Role of Opaque Travel Agencies," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(4), pages 803-837, December.
    2. Chris K. Anderson, 2009. "Setting Prices on Priceline," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 39(4), pages 307-315, August.
    3. Kinshuk Jerath & Serguei Netessine & Senthil K. Veeraraghavan, 2010. "Revenue Management with Strategic Customers: Last-Minute Selling and Opaque Selling," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(3), pages 430-448, March.
    4. Woonghee Tim Huh & Ganesh Janakiraman, 2008. "Inventory Management with Auctions and Other Sales Channels: Optimality of (s, S) Policies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(1), pages 139-150, January.
    5. René Caldentey & Gustavo Vulcano, 2007. "Online Auction and List Price Revenue Management," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(5), pages 795-813, May.
    6. Hila Etzion & Edieal Pinker & Abraham Seidmann, 2006. "Analyzing the Simultaneous Use of Auctions and Posted Prices for Online Selling," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 8(1), pages 68-91, March.
    7. Garrett van Ryzin & Gustavo Vulcano, 2004. "Optimal Auctioning and Ordering in an Infinite Horizon Inventory-Pricing System," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 52(3), pages 346-367, June.
    8. Isabelle Huault & V. Perret & S. Charreire-Petit, 2007. "Management," Post-Print halshs-00337676, HAL.
    9. Scott Fay, 2004. "Partial-Repeat-Bidding in the Name-Your-Own-Price Channel," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(3), pages 407-418, February.
    10. Min Ding & Jehoshua Eliashberg & Joel Huber & Ritesh Saini, 2005. "Emotional Bidders---An Analytical and Experimental Examination of Consumers' Behavior in a Priceline-Like Reverse Auction," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(3), pages 352-364, March.
    11. Il-Horn Hann & Christian Terwiesch, 2003. "Measuring the Frictional Costs of Online Transactions: The Case of a Name-Your-Own-Price Channel," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1563-1579, November.
    12. Tuo Wang & Esther Gal-Or & Rabikar Chatterjee, 2009. "The Name-Your-Own-Price Channel in the Travel Industry: An Analytical Exploration," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(6), pages 968-979, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mao, Zhaofang & Liu, Wei & Feng, Bo, 2019. "Opaque distribution channels for service providers with asymmetric capacities: Posted-price mechanisms," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 112-120.
    2. Zhang, Yi & Hua, Guowei & Cheng, T.C.E. & Zhang, Juliang & Fernandez, Vicenc, 2020. "Risk pooling through physical probabilistic selling," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 295-311.
    3. Yifan Wu & Shibo Jin, 2022. "Joint pricing and inventory decision under a probabilistic selling strategy," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 1209-1233, April.
    4. Philipp Ströhle & Christoph M. Flath & Johannes Gärttner, 2019. "Leveraging Customer Flexibility for Car-Sharing Fleet Optimization," Service Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(1), pages 42-61, February.
    5. Aleksandra Kovacheva & Hristina Nikolova, 2024. "Uncertainty marketing tactics: An overview and a unifying framework," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 1-22, January.
    6. Nosoohi, Iman, 2022. "Posted price and name-your-own-price in a product line design problem," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    7. Zhang, Juliang & Deng, Lan & Liu, Huimin & Cheng, T.C.E., 2022. "Which strategy is better for managing multi-product demand uncertainty: Inventory substitution or probabilistic selling?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(1), pages 79-95.
    8. Feng, Bo & Mao, Zhaofang & Li, Hui, 2021. "Choices for competing service providers with heterogeneous customers: Traditional versus opaque sales modes," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    9. Qing Li & Christopher S. Tang & He Xu, 2020. "Mitigating the Double‐Blind Effect in Opaque Selling: Inventory and Information," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(1), pages 35-54, January.
    10. Raza, Syed Asif & Turiac, Mihaela, 2016. "Joint optimal determination of process mean, production quantity, pricing, and market segmentation with demand leakage," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 249(1), pages 312-326.
    11. Berbeglia, Franco & Berbeglia, Gerardo & Van Hentenryck, Pascal, 2021. "Market segmentation in online platforms," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 295(3), pages 1025-1041.
    12. Guo, Xiaolong & Bian, Junsong & Wu, Peiyan & Shi, Victor & Chen, Huangen, 2023. "Probabilistic product design with regret-anticipated consumers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 263(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert Zeithammer, 2015. "Optimal selling strategies when buyers name their own prices," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 135-171, June.
    2. Robert Zeithammer, 2015. "Optimal selling strategies when buyers name their own prices," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 135-171, June.
    3. Krämer, Florentin & Schmidt, Klaus M. & Spann, Martin & Stich, Lucas, 2017. "Delegating pricing power to customers: Pay What You Want or Name Your Own Price?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 125-140.
    4. Rachel R. Chen & Esther Gal-Or & Paolo Roma, 2014. "Opaque Distribution Channels for Competing Service Providers: Posted Price vs. Name-Your-Own-Price Mechanisms," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 62(4), pages 733-750, August.
    5. Scott Fay & Robert Zeithammer, 2017. "Bidding for Bidders? How the Format for Soliciting Supplier Participation in NYOP Auctions Impacts Channel Profit," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4324-4344, December.
    6. Zhang, Yi & Hua, Guowei & Cheng, T.C.E. & Zhang, Juliang & Fernandez, Vicenc, 2020. "Risk pooling through physical probabilistic selling," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 295-311.
    7. Gérard P. Cachon, 2020. "A Research Framework for Business Models: What Is Common Among Fast Fashion, E-Tailing, and Ride Sharing?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1172-1192, March.
    8. Martin Spann & Robert Zeithammer & Gerald Häubl, 2010. "Optimal Reverse-Pricing Mechanisms," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(6), pages 1058-1070, 11-12.
    9. Ali E. Abbas & Il-Horn Hann, 2010. "Measuring Risk Aversion in a Name-Your-Own-Price Channel," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 7(1), pages 123-136, March.
    10. Bernhardt, Martin & Spann, Martin, 2010. "An Empirical Analysis of Bidding Fees in Name-your-own-price Auctions," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 283-296.
    11. Martin Spann & Robert Zeithammer & Marco Bertini & Ernan Haruvy & Sandy D. Jap & Oded Koenigsberg & Vincent Mak & Peter Popkowski Leszczyc & Bernd Skiera & Manoj Thomas, 2018. "Beyond Posted Prices: the Past, Present, and Future of Participative Pricing Mechanisms," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 5(1), pages 121-136, March.
    12. Sun, Daewon & Li, Erick & Hayya, Jack C., 2010. "The optimal format to sell a product through the internet: Posted price, auction, and buy-price auction," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(1), pages 147-157, September.
    13. Chen, Yahong & Li, Jinlin & Huang, He & Ran, Lun & Hu, Yusheng, 2017. "Encouraging information sharing to boost the name-your-own-price auction," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 479(C), pages 108-117.
    14. Dmitry Shapiro, 2011. "Profitability of the Name-Your-Own-Price Channel in the Case of Risk-Averse Buyers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(2), pages 290-304, 03-04.
    15. Shapiro, Dmitry & Zillante, Arthur, 2009. "Naming your own price mechanisms: Revenue gain or drain?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 725-737, November.
    16. Malgorzata Ogonowska, 2012. "Selling Tourism Products through the Opaque Channels," Post-Print halshs-01219441, HAL.
    17. Yu Ning & Su Xiu Xu & George Q. Huang & Xudong Lin, 2021. "Optimal digital product auctions with unlimited supply and rebidding behavior," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 307(1), pages 399-416, December.
    18. Tuo Wang & Esther Gal-Or & Rabikar Chatterjee, 2009. "The Name-Your-Own-Price Channel in the Travel Industry: An Analytical Exploration," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(6), pages 968-979, June.
    19. Scott Fay & Juliano Laran, 2009. "Implications of Expected Changes in the Seller's Price in Name-Your-Own-Price Auctions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(11), pages 1783-1796, November.
    20. Hummel, Patrick, 2015. "Simultaneous use of auctions and posted prices," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 269-284.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:233:y:2014:i:1:p:263-272. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.