Pricing Strategies for O2O Catering Merchants Considering Reference Price Effects and Unconditional Coupons

Coupon marketing is an important promotion model for the O2O catering supply chain. As a well-known catering O2O platform in China, Meituan provides its members with the opportunity to buy unconditional coupons at low prices, and it is very popular with consumers. It is worth studying how catering merchants develop pricing and promotion strategies considering consumers’ reference price effects in two scenarios: participating and not participating in coupon stacking (S-PICS/S-NPICS). In order to explore the pricing mechanism of meals, two models using Stackelberg games are established considering some exogenous variables, such as commission rate, reference price, and sensitivity of consumers to coupon prices. The results show that (1) the reference price has a great influence on the maximum profits of catering merchants, varying in different scenarios; (2) in S-NPICS, the merchants’ maximum profit increases with an increase in the reference price, while, in S-PICS, an increase in the reference price leads to a decrease in merchants’ maximum profit; (3) the profit of merchants in S-PICS is higher than that in S-NPICS, indicating that merchants can benefit from coupon stacking; (4) when the commission rate of the coupons increases, the merchants in both S-PICS and S-NPICS should raise their online meal prices to obtain higher profits. This study provides a balanced reference for pricing strategies and coupon promotion strategies in different scenarios through the use of deduction and simulation methods, which is conducive to the sustainable development of the O2O catering supply chain. As consumers enjoy using these coupons, including unconditional ones, it is suggested that merchants and Meituan should focus on coupon promotion and develop better dining pricing strategies.