IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/wpaper/130557.html

Platform Disintermediation with Repeated Transactions

Author

Listed:
  • Enache, Andreea
  • Rhodes, Andrew

Abstract

We consider a setting in which a platform matches buyers and sellers, who then wish to transact with each other multiple times. The platform charges fees for hosting transactions, but also offers convenience benefits. We consider two scenarios. In one scenario, all transactions must occur on the platform; in the other scenario, buyers and sellers can disintermediate the platform after the first transaction, and do subsequent transactions offline. We find that the platform reacts to disintermediation by using a “front-loaded” pricing scheme, whereby it charges more for earlier transactions. We also show that sometimes the platform is better off when disintermediation is possible—because it can use disintermediation to screen users’ private information about their convenience benefits. Buyers are not necessarily better off when they can disintermediate, due to the way in which the platform adjusts its fees.

Suggested Citation

  • Enache, Andreea & Rhodes, Andrew, 2025. "Platform Disintermediation with Repeated Transactions," TSE Working Papers 25-1645, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Aug 2025.
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:130557
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/wp/2025/wp_tse_1645.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yongmin Chen & Marius Schwartz, 2015. "Differential pricing when costs differ: a welfare analysis," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(2), pages 442-460, June.
    2. 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.
    3. Bing Jing, 2018. "Showrooming and Webrooming: Information Externalities Between Online and Offline Sellers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(3), pages 469-483, May.
    4. Anantaram Balakrishnan & Shankar Sundaresan & Bo Zhang, 2014. "Browse-and-Switch: Retail-Online Competition under Value Uncertainty," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 23(7), pages 1129-1145, July.
    5. 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.
    6. Heski Bar-Isaac & Sandro Shelegia, 2023. "Search, Showrooming, and Retailer Variety," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(2), pages 251-270, March.
    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. Chen, Yan & Zhang, Tao & Li, Gang & Wang, Wei, 2024. "The interaction between manufacturer’s showroom deployment and online selling formats," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    2. W. Jason Choi & Qihong Liu & Jiwoong Shin, 2024. "Predictive Analytics and Ship-Then-Shop Subscription," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(2), pages 1012-1028, February.
    3. Zhong, Yuyun & Shen, Wenjing & Ceryan, Oben, 2023. "Information provision under showrooming and webrooming," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    4. Zhang, Kun & Dai, Yue & Cai, Gangshu (George), 2025. "Unifying or discriminating: Competitive pricing strategies for multi-channel retailers," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 454-472.
    5. Han Wei & Xuefeng Zhao, 2023. "Contracts for online retailers considering consumer intra-product showrooming," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 329(1), pages 1381-1423, October.
    6. Yanhong Sun & Zihan Wang & Shuai Yan & Xiaohua Han, 2023. "Digital showroom strategies for dual-channel supply chains in the presence of consumer webrooming behavior," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 329(1), pages 1109-1148, October.
    7. Lam, Wing Man Wynne & Liu, Xingyi, 2020. "Does data portability facilitate entry?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    8. Masashi Umezawa & Shigetaka Yamakawa, 2025. "The impact of switching costs on behavior-based price discrimination with multiple consumer types," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 145(2), pages 147-187, July.
    9. Sun, Yanhong & Wang, Zihan & Han, Xiaohua, 2020. "Supply chain channel strategies for online retailers: Whether to introduce web showrooms?," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    10. Chuanya Jiao & Bin Hu, 2022. "Showrooming, webrooming, and operational strategies for competitiveness," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(8), pages 3217-3232, August.
    11. Huang, Lingchen & Liu, Bin & Zhang, Rong, 2024. "Channel strategies for competing retailers: Whether and when to introduce live stream?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 312(2), pages 413-426.
    12. Yuxin Chen & Yue Dai & Zhe Zhang & Kun Zhang, 2024. "Managing Multirooming: Why Uniform Price Can Be Optimal for a Monopoly Retailer and Can Be Uniformly Lower," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(5), pages 3102-3122, May.
    13. Krista J. Li, 2021. "Behavior-Based Quality Discrimination," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 425-436, March.
    14. Zhang, Yingdan & Yang, Ruina & Yi, Zelong & Yao, Shiqing & Jing, Yiheng, 2023. "Behavior-Based pricing under asymmetric channel competition with strategic consumers," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    15. Guangyong Yang & Guojun Ji & Kim Hua Tan, 2022. "Impact of artificial intelligence adoption on online returns policies," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 308(1), pages 703-726, January.
    16. Subrata Mitra, 2022. "Economic models of price competition between traditional and online retailing under showrooming," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 49(1), pages 29-63, March.
    17. Pun, Hubert & Chen, Jing & Li, Wei, 2020. "Channel strategy for manufacturers in the presence of service freeriders," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(2), pages 460-479.
    18. Wang, Qiang & Ji, Xiang & Zhao, Nenggui, 2024. "Embracing the power of AI in retail platform operations: Considering the showrooming effect and consumer returns," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    19. Wang, Junbin & Wang, Shanshan, 2022. "Revisiting the showrooming effect on online and offline retailers: The strategic role of in-store service," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    20. Zhao, Chenchen & Wu, Jianghua & He, Yuhong, 2026. "Randomized price-matching: How the instant retail platform competes with the community group-buying store," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:tse:wpaper:130557. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tsetofr.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.