IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v256y2017i1p68-75.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Group-buying and channel coordination under asymmetric information

Author

Listed:
  • Tran, Thanh
  • Desiraju, Ramarao

Abstract

Social media and improvements in technology allow retailers to offer a group-buying option to consumers in a variety of markets. Extant research shows that when consumers are sufficiently heterogeneous, group-buying helps a retailer practice price discrimination. Our paper examines when a manufacturer may prefer its reseller to employ the group-buying mechanism in conjunction with a traditional posted price. In our model, the retailer is privately informed about market heterogeneity, which is summarized via the relative size and the level of price sensitivity of two consumer segments. We show that any value to the manufacturer, of requiring the retailer to offer group-buying, revolves around how profitability varies with market heterogeneity. Our principal finding is that group-buying benefits the manufacturer more when the retailer is privately informed about market size than about the level of consumer price sensitivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Tran, Thanh & Desiraju, Ramarao, 2017. "Group-buying and channel coordination under asymmetric information," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(1), pages 68-75.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:256:y:2017:i:1:p:68-75
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2016.05.054
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221716303915
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2016.05.054?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. Zhang, Dengfeng & de Matta, Renato & Lowe, Timothy J., 2010. "Channel coordination in a consignment contract," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(2), pages 897-905, December.
    2. Liang, Xiaoying & Ma, Lijun & Xie, Lei & Yan, Houmin, 2014. "The informational aspect of the group-buying mechanism," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(1), pages 331-340.
    3. Preyas S. Desai, 1997. "Advertising Fee in Business-Format Franchising," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(10), pages 1401-1419, October.
    4. Abel P. Jeuland & Steven M. Shugan, 1983. "Managing Channel Profits," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(3), pages 239-272.
    5. Rey, Patrick & Tirole, Jean, 1986. "The Logic of Vertical Restraints," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 921-939, December.
    6. Sheu, Jiuh-Biing, 2011. "Marketing-driven channel coordination with revenue-sharing contracts under price promotion to end-customers," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 214(2), pages 246-255, October.
    7. Linh, Cao To & Hong, Yushin, 2009. "Channel coordination through a revenue sharing contract in a two-period newsboy problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 198(3), pages 822-829, November.
    8. Ravi Kumar, K. & Loomba, Arvinder P. S. & Hadjinicola, George C., 2000. "Marketing-production coordination in channels of distribution," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 189-217, October.
    9. Dukes, Anthony & Gal-Or, Esther & Geylani, Tansev, 2011. "Who benefits from bilateral information exchange in a retail channel?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 210-212, August.
    10. Zhang, Michael & Bell, Peter C. & Cai, Gangshu (George) & Chen, Xiangfeng, 2010. "Optimal fences and joint price and inventory decisions in distinct markets with demand leakage," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 204(3), pages 589-596, August.
    11. Wei-yu Kevin Chiang & Dilip Chhajed & James D. Hess, 2003. "Direct Marketing, Indirect Profits: A Strategic Analysis of Dual-Channel Supply-Chain Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(1), pages 1-20, January.
    12. Krishnan S. Anand & Ravi Aron, 2003. "Group Buying on the Web: A Comparison of Price-Discovery Mechanisms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1546-1562, November.
    13. Charles A. Ingene & Mark E. Parry, 1995. "Channel Coordination When Retailers Compete," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 360-377.
    14. Rodríguez, Betzabé & Aydın, Göker, 2015. "Pricing and assortment decisions for a manufacturer selling through dual channels," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 242(3), pages 901-909.
    15. Frank Mathewson & Ralph Winter, 1998. "The Law and Economics of Resale Price Maintenance," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 13(1), pages 57-84, April.
    16. Xiaoqing Jing & Jinhong Xie, 2011. "Group Buying: A New Mechanism for Selling Through Social Interactions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(8), pages 1354-1372, August.
    17. Cao, James & So, Kut C. & Yin, Shuya, 2016. "Impact of an “online-to-store” channel on demand allocation, pricing and profitability," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(1), pages 234-245.
    18. Birendra K. Mishra & Ashutosh Prasad, 2005. "Delegating Pricing Decisions in Competitive Markets with Symmetric and Asymmetric Information," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 490-497, March.
    19. Kunter, Marcus, 2012. "Coordination via cost and revenue sharing in manufacturer–retailer channels," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 216(2), pages 477-486.
    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. Oktay Karabağ & Barış Tan, 2018. "Analysis of a group purchasing organization under demand and price uncertainty," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 30(4), pages 844-883, December.
    2. Bi, Gongbing & Geng, Botao & Liu, Lindong, 2019. "On the fixed and flexible funding mechanisms in reward-based crowdfunding," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 279(1), pages 168-183.
    3. Singham, D.I., 2019. "Sample average approximation for the continuous type principal-agent problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 275(3), pages 1050-1057.
    4. Guanqun Ni, 2019. "A pricing model for group buying based on network effects," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-18, January.

    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. Sun, Shuxing & Zhang, Bin, 2022. "Operation strategies for nanostore in community group buying," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    2. Jin, Yannan & Wu, Xiaole & Hu, Qiying, 2017. "Interaction between channel strategy and store brand decisions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(3), pages 911-923.
    3. Øystein Foros & Hans Jarle Kind & Jan Yngve Sand, 2009. "Slotting Allowances and Manufacturers' Retail Sales Effort," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(1), pages 266-282, July.
    4. Nawel Amrouche & Ruiliang Yan, 2016. "A manufacturer distribution issue: how to manage an online and a traditional retailer," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 244(2), pages 257-294, September.
    5. Yunchuan Liu & Z. John Zhang, 2006. "Research Note—The Benefits of Personalized Pricing in a Channel," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(1), pages 97-105, 01-02.
    6. Greg Shaffer & Florian Zettelmeyer, 2004. "Advertising in a Distribution Channel," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 619-628, November.
    7. Ratul Lahkar & Vinay Ramani, 2020. "Can incomplete information lead to better social outcomes?," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(5), pages 771-783, July.
    8. Chabowski, Brian R. & Hult, G. Tomas M. & Mena, Jeannette A., 2011. "The Retailing Literature as a Basis for Franchising Research: Using Intellectual Structure to Advance Theory," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 269-284.
    9. Wang, Charles X. & Qian, Zhuang & Zhao, Yabing, 2018. "Impact of manufacturer and retailer's market pricing power on customer satisfaction incentives in supply chains," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 98-112.
    10. Özelkan, Ertunga C. & ÇakanyIldIrIm, Metin, 2009. "Reverse bullwhip effect in pricing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 192(1), pages 302-312, January.
    11. Haresh Gurnani & Murat Erkoc, 2008. "Supply contracts in manufacturer‐retailer interactions with manufacturer‐quality and retailer effort‐induced demand," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(3), pages 200-217, April.
    12. Qijun Qiu & Ying-Ju Chen & Benjamin P.-C. Yen, 2018. "The Implications of Group-Buying as a Channel Option Under Capacity Constraint," Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research (APJOR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 35(04), pages 1-32, August.
    13. Eunkyu Lee & Richard Staelin & Weon Sang Yoo & Rex Du, 2013. "A “Meta-Analysis” of Multibrand, Multioutlet Channel Systems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(9), pages 1950-1969, September.
    14. Cai, Gangshu (George), 2010. "Channel Selection and Coordination in Dual-Channel Supply Chains," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 22-36.
    15. Cai, Gangshu (George) & Zhang, Zhe George & Zhang, Michael, 2009. "Game theoretical perspectives on dual-channel supply chain competition with price discounts and pricing schemes," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 80-96, January.
    16. Long Gao & Birendra K. Mishra, 2019. "The Role of Market Evolution in Channel Contracting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 2432-2441, May.
    17. Vibhanshu Abhishek & Kinshuk Jerath & Z. John Zhang, 2016. "Agency Selling or Reselling? Channel Structures in Electronic Retailing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(8), pages 2259-2280, August.
    18. Chen, Xi & Zhang, Hui & Zhang, Michael & Chen, Jing, 2017. "Optimal decisions in a retailer Stackelberg supply chain," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 260-270.
    19. Amrouche, Nawel & Yan, Ruiliang, 2013. "Can a weak retailer benefit from manufacturer-dominant retailer alliance?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 34-42.
    20. Shuhan Xu & Tianrui Chen, 2023. "Research on Optimal Group-Purchase Threshold and Pricing Strategy of Community Group Purchase," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-18, December.

    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:256:y:2017:i:1:p:68-75. 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.