IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bav/wpaper/115_mutherswismer.html

Why Do Platforms Charge Proportional Fees? Commitment and Seller Participation

Author

Listed:
  • Johannes Muthers
  • Sebastian Wismer

Abstract

If an intermediary offers sellers a platform to reach consumers, he may face the following hold-up problem: sellers suspect the intermediary will enter their respective product market as a merchant after they have sunk fixed costs of entry. Therefore, fearing that their investments cannot be recouped, less sellers join the platform. Hence, committing to not becoming active in sellers' markets can be profittable for the intermediary. We discuss different platform tariff systems to analyze this hold-up problem. We find that proportional fees (which are observed in many relevant real-world examples) mitigate the problem, unlike classical two-part tariffs (which most of the literature on two-sided markets examines). Thus, we offer a novel explanation for the use of proportional platform fees.

Suggested Citation

  • Johannes Muthers & Sebastian Wismer, 2012. "Why Do Platforms Charge Proportional Fees? Commitment and Seller Participation," Working Papers 115, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    • Handle: RePEc:bav:wpaper:115_mutherswismer
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://bgpe.cms.rrze.uni-erlangen.de/files/2023/07/115_Why-Do-Platforms-Charge-Proportional-Fees_Commitment-and-Seller-Participation.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morton I. Kamien & Yair Tauman, 1986. "Fees Versus Royalties and the Private Value of a Patent," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 471-491.
    2. Belleflamme, Paul & Peitz, Martin, 2010. "Platform competition and seller investment incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 1059-1076, November.
    3. Morgane Cure & Matthias Hunold & Reinhold Kesler & Ulrich Laitenberger & Thomas Larrieu, 2022. "Vertical integration of platforms and product prominence," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 353-395, December.
    4. Andrei Hagiu & Tat‐How Teh & Julian Wright, 2022. "Should platforms be allowed to sell on their own marketplaces?," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 53(2), pages 297-327, June.
    5. Hendrikse, George & Jiang, Tao, 2011. "An Incomplete Contracting Model of Dual Distribution in Franchising," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 332-344.
    6. Hagiu Andrei, 2007. "Merchant or Two-Sided Platform?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-19, June.
    7. Mark Armstrong, 2006. "Competition in two‐sided markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, September.
    8. Jean‐Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Two‐sided markets: a progress report," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 645-667, September.
    9. Miao Chun-Hui, 2014. "Do Card Users Benefit From the Use of Proportional Fees?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 323-341, January.
    10. Wang, X. Henry, 1998. "Fee versus royalty licensing in a Cournot duopoly model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 55-62, July.
    11. Jullien, Bruno, 2010. "Two-Sided B2B Platforms," IDEI Working Papers 652, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse, revised Mar 2011.
    12. Anderson, Simon & Bedre-Defolie, Özlem, 2022. "Online trade platforms: Hosting, selling, or both?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 84, pages 1-15.
    13. Andrei Hagiu, 2006. "Pricing and commitment by two‐sided platforms," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 720-737, September.
    14. Zhu Wang & Julian Wright, 2017. "Ad valorem platform fees, indirect taxes, and efficient price discrimination," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 48(2), pages 467-484, May.
    15. Andrei Hagiu, 2009. "Two‐Sided Platforms: Product Variety and Pricing Structures," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 1011-1043, December.
    16. Baojun Jiang & Kinshuk Jerath & Kannan Srinivasan, 2011. "Firm Strategies in the "Mid Tail" of Platform-Based Retailing," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(5), pages 757-775, September.
    17. Federico Etro, 2021. "Product selection in online marketplaces," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 614-637, August.
    18. Andrei Hagiu, 2006. "Pricing and Commitment by Two-Sided Platforms," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 720-737, Autumn.
    19. Oz Shy & Zhu Wang, 2011. "Why Do Payment Card Networks Charge Proportional Fees?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1575-1590, June.
    20. Sen, Debapriya, 2005. "Fee versus royalty reconsidered," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 141-147, October.
    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. Honglin Li & Xiaolu Liu, 2021. "Ad valorem versus per unit taxation: a perspective from price signaling," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 134(1), pages 27-47, September.
    2. Federico Etro, 2024. "e‐Commerce platforms and self‐preferencing," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1516-1543, September.
    3. Zhu Wang & Julian Wright, 2012. "Ad-valorem platform fees and efficient price discrimination," Working Paper 12-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    4. Niedermayer Andras, 2015. "Does a Platform Monopolist Want Competition?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-44, March.
    5. Zhu Wang & Julian Wright, 2017. "Ad valorem platform fees, indirect taxes, and efficient price discrimination," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 48(2), pages 467-484, May.
    6. Wismer, Sebastian, 2013. "Intermediated vs. Direct Sales and a No-Discrimination Rule," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79999, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Hongyan Li & Shiming Deng, 2019. "A game-theoretical analysis of joint-rebate strategies in platform-based retailing systems," EURO Journal on Decision Processes, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 7(1), pages 117-150, May.
    8. Zhu Wang, 2018. "Why Do Platforms Use Ad Valorem Fees? Evaluating Two Alternative Explanations," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue 4Q, pages 153-171.
    9. Niedermayer, Andreas, 2015. "Does a Platform Monopolist Want Competition?," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 523, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.

    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. Daniel M. Nedelescu, 2025. "The Effects of Conventional Policies on Price Structure and Consumer Surplus in a Two-sided Market–an Economics Experiment," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 173-198, March.
    2. Jan Frederic Nerbel & Markus Kreutzer, 2023. "Digital platform ecosystems in flux: From proprietary digital platforms to wide-spanning ecosystems," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 33(1), pages 1-20, December.
    3. Martin Poniatowski & Hedda Lüttenberg & Daniel Beverungen & Dennis Kundisch, 2022. "Three layers of abstraction: a conceptual framework for theorizing digital multi-sided platforms," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 257-283, June.
    4. Evangelos Katsamakas & J. Manuel Sanchez-Cartas, 2025. "Congestion, network effects and platform competition," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 20(2), pages 451-475, April.
    5. Carmen Leong & Silvia Lin & Felix Tan & Jie Yu, 2024. "Coordination in a Digital Platform Organization," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(1), pages 363-393, March.
    6. Doh-Shin Jeon & Yassine Lefouili & Leonardo Madio, 2021. "Platform Liability and Innovation," Working Papers 21-05, NET Institute.
    7. Francesco Angelini & Massimiliano Castellani & Lorenzo Zirulia, 2025. "Platform investment and seller competition in two-sided markets," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 1-29, January.
    8. Etro, Federico, 2023. "Platform competition with free entry of sellers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    9. Jeon, Doh-Shin & Jullien, Bruno & Klimenko, Mikhail, 2021. "Language, internet and platform competition," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    10. Liu, He & Li, Xuerong & Wang, Shouyang, 2021. "A bibliometric analysis of 30 years of platform research: Developing the research agenda for platforms, the associated technologies and social impacts," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    11. repec:ces:ceswps:_9984 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Frank Stähler & Leander Stähler, 2022. "Copyright Protection in the Digital Single Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 9597, CESifo.
    13. Man Wang & Honghui Deng & Keong G. Leong, 2023. "Innovation investment and subsidy strategy in two-sided market," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 337-351, December.
    14. Amit Kumar Bardhan & Saad Ashraf, 2024. "More buyers or more sellers: on marketing resource allocation strategies of competing two-sided platforms," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 2579-2608, December.
    15. Jürgen Rösch, 2024. "Market entry as a marketplace owner: when and why should you sell on your marketplace?," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 94(3), pages 525-541, April.
    16. Roberto Bombana & Carla Marchese, 2014. "Designing fees for music copyright holders in radio services," ECONOMIA E POLITICA INDUSTRIALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2014(2), pages 5-19.
    17. Zennyo, Yusuke, 2024. "A model of mobile app and ad platform markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    18. Maria Rosa Battaggion & Serena Marianna Drufuca, 2020. "Quality competition and entry: a media market case," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 1-36, June.
    19. Wang, Jin, 2021. "Do birds of a feather flock together? Platform’s quality screening and end-users’ choices theory and empirical study of online trading platforms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    20. Reisinger, Markus, 2014. "Two-part tariff competition between two-sided platforms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 168-180.
    21. Martin Peitz, 2024. "The Economic Theory of Two-Sided Platforms," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_584, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:bav:wpaper:115_mutherswismer. 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: Anton Barabasch (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vierlde.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.