IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hit/hitcei/2014-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Product Customization in the Spokes Model

Author

Listed:
  • Aoki, Reiko
  • Hillas, John
  • Kao, Tina

Abstract

We use a spokes model to analyze ?ms?customization incentives when facing the choices of standard and niche products. Products at or near the end of the spokes are customized products, while products near the origin are more standardized products that cater to the taste of many consumers. Our results indicate that although monopolist always offers the standard product, if a ?m anticipates entry, it may choose to stake claim to a customized product. For low transportation costs, the early entrant chooses the standard product. But this equilibrium is characterized by aggressive pricing behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Aoki, Reiko & Hillas, John & Kao, Tina, 2014. "Product Customization in the Spokes Model," CEI Working Paper Series 2014-8, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
  • Handle: RePEc:hit:hitcei:2014-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/28318/wp2014-8.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas von Ungern-Sternberg, 1988. "Monopolistic Competition and General Purpose Products," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 231-246.
    2. Ayd{i}n Alptekinou{g}lu & Charles J. Corbett, 2008. "Mass Customization vs. Mass Production: Variety and Price Competition," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 10(2), pages 204-217, August.
    3. Thisse, Jacques-Francois & Vives, Xavier, 1988. "On the Strategic Choice of Spatial Price Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 122-137, March.
    4. Farrell, Joseph & Klemperer, Paul, 2007. "Coordination and Lock-In: Competition with Switching Costs and Network Effects," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 31, pages 1967-2072, Elsevier.
    5. Keizo Mizuno & Yasunori Okumura, 2014. "Strategic Location Choice and Network Formation for Entry," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 170(2), pages 201-224, June.
    6. Rajiv Dewan & Bing Jing & Abraham Seidmann, 2003. "Product Customization and Price Competition on the Internet," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(8), pages 1055-1070, August.
    7. Martin J. Beckmann, 1976. "Spatial Price Policies Revisited," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(2), pages 619-630, Autumn.
    8. Yongmin Chen & Michael H. Riordan, 2007. "Price and Variety in the Spokes Model," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(522), pages 897-921, July.
    9. George Norman & Lynn Pepall & Dan Richards, 2009. "Innovation, Fast Seconds, and Patent Policy," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0745, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    10. Yongmin Chen & Michael H. Riordan, 2008. "Price‐increasing competition," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(4), pages 1042-1058, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Haim Mendelson & Ali K. Parlaktürk, 2008. "Competitive Customization," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 377-390, October.
    2. Haim Mendelson & Ali K. Parlaktürk, 2008. "Product-Line Competition: Customization vs. Proliferation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(12), pages 2039-2053, December.
    3. González-Maestre, Miguel & Granero, Lluís M., 2020. "Excessive vs. insufficient entry in spatial models: When product design and market size matter," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 27-35.
    4. González-Maestre, Miguel & Granero, Lluís M., 2018. "Competition with targeted product design: Price, variety, and welfare," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 406-428.
    5. Nan Xia & S. Rajagopalan, 2009. "Standard vs. Custom Products: Variety, Lead Time, and Price Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(5), pages 887-900, 09-10.
    6. Shon M. Ferguson, 2015. "Endogenous Product Differentiation, Market Size and Prices," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 45-61, February.
    7. 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.
    8. Mark Armstrong & John Vickers, 2018. "Patterns of Competition with Captive Customers," Economics Series Working Papers 864, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Glenn Ellison, 2005. "A Model of Add-On Pricing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 120(2), pages 585-637.
    10. Evgeny Zhelobodko & Sergey Kokovin & Mathieu Parenti & Jacques-François Thisse, 2011. "Monopolistic competition in general equilibrium: Beyond the CES," PSE Working Papers halshs-00566431, HAL.
    11. Rhodes, Andrew & Zhou, Jidong, 2022. "Personalized Pricing and Competition," MPRA Paper 112988, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. He, Bo & Mirchandani, Prakash & Yang, Guang, 2023. "Offering custom products using a C2M model: Collaborating with an E-commerce platform," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    13. repec:umc:wpaper:0814 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Petros G. Sekeris & Kevin Siqueira, 2021. "Payoff-Improving Competition: Games with Negative Externalities," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 58(3), pages 455-474, May.
    15. Li Chen & Yao Cui & Hau L. Lee, 2021. "Retailing with 3D Printing," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(7), pages 1986-2007, July.
    16. Yongmin Chen & Michael H. Riordan, 2015. "Prices, Profits, and Preference Dependence," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 549-568, December.
    17. Nicholas Economides & Przemyslaw Jeziorski, 2017. "Mobile Money in Tanzania," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(6), pages 815-837, November.
    18. Guo, Shu & Choi, Tsan-Ming & Chung, Sai-Ho, 2022. "Self-design fun: Should 3D printing be employed in mass customization operations?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 299(3), pages 883-897.
    19. Jiwoong Shin & K. Sudhir, 2010. "A Customer Management Dilemma: When Is It Profitable to Reward One's Own Customers?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 671-689, 07-08.
    20. Bernhardt, Dan & Liu, Qihong & Serfes, Konstantinos, 2007. "Product customization," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 1396-1422, August.
    21. Rosa Branca Esteves, 2009. "A Survey on the Economics of Behaviour-Based Price Discrimination," NIPE Working Papers 5/2009, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    product differentiation; product customization; entry; spatial oligopoly;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hit:hitcei:2014-8. 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: Reiko Suzuki (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cehitjp.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.