C2C环境下卖家差异化策略对销量的影响——基于两阶段决策的买家购物决策分析

Effects of the Sellers' Differentiation on Sales Amount in C2C Markets——A Study of Buyers' Behavior Analysis based on Two-stage Decision

C2C环境下激烈的竞争促使卖家通过差异化策略来弱化价格竞争以提高销量。考虑到C2C买家的搜索成本,本文以买家两阶段决策过程为基础建立买家效用函数,分析卖家差异化策略对销量的影响,并利用从淘宝收集的同质产品的面板数据进行实证研究。研究结果表明,卖家的被搜索成本、信用、上个月的销量对本月销量有显著的影响,而提供的服务和收到的评分无显著影响。通过考察销量的Gini系数和卖家服务的差异化水平,我们发现卖家之间的竞争异常激烈,而淘宝提供的差异化渠道却非常有限,卖家只能在信用和被搜索成本上进行差异化。最后,本文依据研究结果对C2C环境中的卖家和平台提出了建议。

Sellers differentiate themselves in every possible aspect to mitigate price competition and to increase sales in C2C markets. This paper proposes a two-stage decision process and derives the utility function for buyers, which is then used for the study of the effects of sellers＇ differentiation strategies on sales. The empirical analysis based on panel data from Taobao shows that searching cost, reputation and sales last month have significant effects on sales of the current month, while service and score do not. Moreover, we find that weekly sales fluctuate and the Gini coefficient of sales is high, which suggests intense competition among sellers. By investigating the differentiation among sellers, we also find that C2C platforms, such as Taobao, do not provide enough channels for sellers to differentiate themselves. As a result, sellers are forced to manipulate reputation to decrease the searching cost and to increase sales. Based on this study, several managerial advices are proposed for C2C platforms.