We analyze a multiproduct duopoly and ask whether firms should offer general purpose products or tailor their offerings to fit specific consumer needs. There are two effects of offering a targeted product: (i) if a consumer's favorite product is offered, her utility increases because there is a better fit between product and preferences; (ii) if her favorite product is not offered, the consumer's utility decreases because she gets a product that is not tailored to her needs at all. Previous work has not considered these two effects jointly and has therefore not been able to capture the tradeoff inherent in market segmentation: for some consumers utility increases due to increased "fit" whereas for others utility decreases due to increased "misfit." We show that in addition to the degree of fit and misfit, the intensity of competition and the fixed cost of offering an additional product determine firms' market segmentation strategies.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Stanford University, Graduate School of Business in its series Research Papers with number
1827.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
Find related papers by JEL classification: L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Brander, James A & Eaton, Jonathan, 1984.
"Product Line Rivalry,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 323-34, June.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)