IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v48y2002i9p1123-1142.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pricing of Information Products on Online Servers: Issues, Models, and Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Sanjay Jain

    (The Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742)

  • P. K. Kannan

    (The Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742)

Abstract

Online information servers that provide access to diverse databases where users can search for, browse through, and download the information they need have been rapidly increasing in number in the past few years. Online vendors have traditionally charged users for information on the based on the length of the time they were connected to the databases. With hardware and software advances, many online servers have recently started changing their pricing strategies to search-based and/or subscription-fee pricing. This paper examines the various issues involved in pricing these information products, and presents an economic approach to analyze conditions under which the various pricing schemes may prove optimal for the online servers. Our results show that the variation in consumer expertise and valuation of information affects the choice of a pricing strategy by the server. We present general conditions under which subscription-fee pricing is optimal even when consumer demand is inelastic. We also find that, given the cost structures characterizing the market, undifferentiated online servers can compete and coexist in the market each making positive profits. We show that in a competitive setting an increase in costs of online servers can sometimes benefit them by enabling them to differentiate themselves. Our results offer insights into the trends in pricing strategies and may provide an explanation as to why many servers may persist with connect-time strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Sanjay Jain & P. K. Kannan, 2002. "Pricing of Information Products on Online Servers: Issues, Models, and Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(9), pages 1123-1142, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:48:y:2002:i:9:p:1123-1142
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.48.9.1123.178
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.48.9.1123.178
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.48.9.1123.178?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eileen G. Abels, 1996. "Pricing of electronic resources: Interviews with three vendors," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 47(3), pages 235-246, March.
    2. Fudenberg, Drew & Tirole, Jean, 1983. "Capital as a commitment: Strategic investment to deter mobility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 227-250, December.
    3. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, I: Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26.
    4. Yannis Bakos & Erik Brynjolfsson, 1999. "Bundling Information Goods: Pricing, Profits, and Efficiency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(12), pages 1613-1630, December.
    5. Shaler Stidham, 1992. "Pricing and Capacity Decisions for a Service Facility: Stability and Multiple Local Optima," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(8), pages 1121-1139, August.
    6. Gupta, Alok & Stahl, Dale O. & Whinston, Andrew B., 1997. "A stochastic equilibrium model of internet pricing," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(4-5), pages 697-722, May.
    7. Drew Fudenberg & Jean Tirole, 1985. "Preemption and Rent Equalization in the Adoption of New Technology," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(3), pages 383-401.
    8. J. Christopher Westland, 1992. "Congestion and Network Externalities in the Short Run Pricing of Information System Services," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(7), pages 992-1009, July.
    9. Sanjeev Dewan & Haim Mendelson, 1990. "User Delay Costs and Internal Pricing for a Service Facility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(12), pages 1502-1517, December.
    10. T. C. A. Bashyam, 2000. "Service Design and Price Competition in Business Information Services," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 48(3), pages 362-375, June.
    11. Yannis Bakos & Erik Brynjolfsson, 2000. "Bundling and Competition on the Internet," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(1), pages 63-82, May.
    12. Rajiv Dewan & Marshall Freimer & Abraham Seidmann, 2000. "Organizing Distribution Channels for Information Goods on the Internet," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 483-495, April.
    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. Yuanchun Jiang & Jennifer Shang & Chris F. Kemerer & Yezheng Liu, 2011. "Optimizing E-tailer Profits and Customer Savings: Pricing Multistage Customized Online Bundles," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(4), pages 737-752, July.
    2. Yifan Dou & Yu Jeffrey Hu & D. J. Wu, 2017. "Selling or Leasing? Pricing Information Goods with Depreciation of Consumer Valuation," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 585-602, September.
    3. Ke-Wei Huang & Arun Sundararajan, 2011. "Pricing Digital Goods: Discontinuous Costs and Shared Infrastructure," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(4), pages 721-738, December.
    4. Bo Li & Subodha Kumar, 2022. "Managing Software‐as‐a‐Service: Pricing and operations," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(6), pages 2588-2608, June.
    5. Arto Ojala & Pasi Tyrväinen, 2006. "Business models and market entry mode choice of small software firms," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 69-81, September.
    6. Grewal, Dhruv & Janakiraman, Ramkumar & Kalyanam, Kirthi & Kannan, P.K. & Ratchford, Brian & Song, Reo & Tolerico, Stephen, 2010. "Strategic Online and Offline Retail Pricing: A Review and Research Agenda," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 138-154.
    7. Ashish Arora & Andrea Fosfuri, 2005. "Pricing Diagnostic Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(7), pages 1092-1100, July.
    8. Mingdi Xin & Arun Sundararajan, 2020. "Nonlinear Pricing of Software with Local Demand Inelasticity," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 1224-1239, December.
    9. Esther Gal-Or & Qiaoni Shi, 2022. "Designing Entry Strategies for Subscription Platforms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7597-7613, October.
    10. Mark Bender & Esther Gal‐Or & Tansev Geylani, 2022. "The emergence of streaming and its impact on pricing and product strategies of content providers," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(6), pages 2148-2171, September.
    11. Roland T. Rust & Tuck Siong Chung, 2006. "Marketing Models of Service and Relationships," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 560-580, 11-12.
    12. Sridhar Balasubramanian & Shantanu Bhattacharya & Vish V. Krishnan, 2015. "Pricing Information Goods: A Strategic Analysis of the Selling and Pay-per-Use Mechanisms," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(2), pages 218-234, March.
    13. Li, Minqiang & Feng, Haiyang & Chen, Fuzan & Kou, Jisong, 2013. "Numerical investigation on mixed bundling and pricing of information products," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 560-571.
    14. Li Chen, 2016. "Selling or Renting: Competition of Electronic Book Retailers," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 6(5), pages 1-2.
    15. Vidyanand Choudhary, 2010. "Use of Pricing Schemes for Differentiating Information Goods," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 78-92, March.
    16. Ramnath K. Chellappa & Shivendu Shivendu, 2010. "Mechanism Design for "Free" but "No Free Disposal" Services: The Economics of Personalization Under Privacy Concerns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(10), pages 1766-1780, October.
    17. Chia-Wei Kuo & Kwei-Long Huang & Chao-Lung Yang, 2017. "Optimal contract design for cloud computing service with resource service guarantee," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(9), pages 1030-1044, September.
    18. Kannan, P.K. & Li, Hongshuang “Alice”, 2017. "Digital marketing: A framework, review and research agenda," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 22-45.
    19. Manish Gangwar & Hemant K. Bhargava, 2023. "Pricing on‐demand services: Alternative ways of combining usage and access fees," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(1), pages 11-27, January.
    20. Rajiv D. Banker & Robert J. Kauffman, 2004. "50th Anniversary Article: The Evolution of Research on Information Systems: A Fiftieth-Year Survey of the Literature in Management Science," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(3), pages 281-298, March.
    21. Adhikari, Arnab & Sharma, Megha & Basu, Sumanta & Jha, Ashish Kumar, 2022. "Uniform or spatially differentiated? Pricing Strategies for Information Goods under simultaneous and sequential decision-making in multi-market context," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    22. Ying-Ju Chen & Ke-Wei Huang, 2016. "Pricing Data Services: Pricing by Minutes, by Gigs, or by Megabytes per Second?," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 596-617.
    23. Abhijit Dutt & Hemant Jain & Sanjeev Kumar, 2018. "Providing Software as a Service: a design decision(s) model," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 327-356, May.
    24. Basu, Sumanta & Chakraborty, Soumyakanti & Sharma, Megha, 2015. "Pricing cloud services—the impact of broadband quality," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 96-114.

    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. Ke-Wei Huang & Arun Sundararajan, 2006. "Pricing Digital Goods: Discontinuous Costs and Shared Infrastructure," Working Papers 06-11, NET Institute, revised Sep 2006.
    2. Kartik Hosanagar & John Chuang & Ramayya Krishnan & Michael D. Smith, 2008. "Service Adoption and Pricing of Content Delivery Network (CDN) Services," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(9), pages 1579-1593, September.
    3. Arun Sundararajan, 2004. "Nonlinear Pricing of Information Goods," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(12), pages 1660-1673, December.
    4. Prabhudev Konana & Alok Gupta & Andrew B. Whinston, 2000. "Integrating User Preferences and Real-Time Workload in Information Services," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 11(2), pages 177-196, June.
    5. Wang, E. T. G., 2000. "Information and incentives in computing services supply: The effect of limited system choices," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(3), pages 503-518, September.
    6. Alok Gupta & Boris Jukic & Dale O. Stahl & Andrew B. Whinston, 2011. "An Analysis of Incentives for Network Infrastructure Investment Under Different Pricing Strategies," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 215-232, June.
    7. Rajiv D. Banker & Robert J. Kauffman, 2004. "50th Anniversary Article: The Evolution of Research on Information Systems: A Fiftieth-Year Survey of the Literature in Management Science," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(3), pages 281-298, March.
    8. Ke-Wei Huang & Arun Sundararajan, 2011. "Pricing Digital Goods: Discontinuous Costs and Shared Infrastructure," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(4), pages 721-738, December.
    9. Slawomir Czetwertynski, 2012. "Peer production on the Internet as an example of global disintegration of production process," Ekonomia i Prawo, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 11(4), pages 47-60, December.
    10. repec:cpn:umkeip:2012:v4:p:47-60 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Anja Lambrecht & Katja Seim & Naufel Vilcassim & Amar Cheema & Yuxin Chen & Gregory Crawford & Kartik Hosanagar & Raghuram Iyengar & Oded Koenigsberg & Robin Lee & Eugenio Miravete & Ozge Sahin, 2012. "Price discrimination in service industries," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 423-438, June.
    12. Martin A. Lariviere & Jan A. Van Mieghem, 2004. "Strategically Seeking Service: How Competition Can Generate Poisson Arrivals," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 23-40, January.
    13. Arun Sundararajan, 2003. "Nonlinear pricing of information goods," Industrial Organization 0307003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Hasan Cavusoglu & Huseyin Cavusoglu & Xianjun Geng, 2020. "Bloatware and Jailbreaking: Strategic Impacts of Consumer-Initiated Modification of Technology Products," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(1), pages 240-257, March.
    15. Tarek Abdallah, 2019. "On the Benefit (Or Cost) of Large‐Scale Bundling," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 28(4), pages 955-969, April.
    16. Ritwik Raj & Mark H. Karwan & Chase Murray & Lei Sun, 2022. "Itemized pricing in B2B bundles with diminishing reservation prices and loss averse customers," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(4), pages 375-392, August.
    17. Stole, Lars A., 2007. "Price Discrimination and Competition," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 34, pages 2221-2299, Elsevier.
    18. Li, Jianbin & Liu, Lang & Luo, Xiaomeng & Zhu, Stuart X., 2023. "Interactive bundle pricing strategy for online pharmacies," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    19. Levent V. Orman, 2006. "Optimum design of electronic communities as economic entities," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 179-194, July.
    20. Drew Fudenberg & David Levine, 2008. "Limit Games and Limit Equilibria," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 2, pages 21-39, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    21. Ashish Arora & Andrea Fosfuri, 2005. "Pricing Diagnostic Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(7), pages 1092-1100, July.

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:48:y:2002:i:9:p:1123-1142. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.