销售商能力受限时与团购网站合作的最优策略研究

Optimal strategies for sellers selling on group-buying website under capacity constraint

近年来团购网站一直是互联网商业中的热潮,如何用定量分析的方法研究销售商参与网络团购项目时的最优策略是一项值得深入探讨的课题。本文结合团购网站现有模式,考虑顾客在线上线下渠道的流动性,建立销售商在能力约束(商品数量或者服务能力有限)情况下参与团购项目销售的决策模型,利用非线性优化理论相关知识求解出销售商和团购网站合作推出团购项目时的最优策略,包括如何设置团购价格,是否需要设置团购上限以及如何设置团购上限。通过与不考虑能力约束模型下的最优策略相比较,讨论能力约束对销售商最优策略的影响,同时进一步分析了当能力约束逐渐收紧时,销售商的最优策略如何变化。研究分析所得的性质与数值分析的结论反映了销售商的决策与团购下限、团购网站销售费用以及顾客转移购买率的关系,得出了一些对销售商有价值的管理启示。

The growth of group-buying（GB） websites has become the latest Internet upsurge these years. Deals on GB website are distinguished from the other traditional promotions by the most typical character that GB website operator sets the minimum deal size. Only when the number of customers buying the product exceeds the minimum deal size can the GB deal be valid. This also means sellers should sell the least quantity of the valid deal as the minimum deal size. This can help GB website operator guarantee the least revenue from each successful deal in case that sellers use the platform as an advertising tool by a free ride. Besides, a GB website operator also charge GB sale fee from sellers. A seller selling on the GB website can decide the price and weather to set a maximum deal size on the deal. If a maximum deal size is made, customers beyond this size would miss the deal. Many sellers take the GB website as a channel to reach more customers. There are good and bad stories for sellers cooperating with the GB website. In order to improve the cooperation between sellers and GB websites, this research builds an analytical model to study sellers’ optimal pricing and deal size-setting when selling on GB website with considering capacity constraint（including product inventory and service capacity）. Comparing with the model without considering capacity limit, this research shows how the capacity constraint affects the seller’s decision. On one hand the condition for the same strategy to be optimal is changed; On the other hand, two more new strategies could be optimal besides three original ones. This research finds that if a seller with an extremely low capacity selling on the GB website, he/she should take advantage of high online price with low maximum deal size even though some customers will still be lost for the short of capacity; If the seller has a moderate capacity constraint, it is not beneficial for the seller to overuse the advertisement effect of selling on GB website. The seller should control the demand and keep it within the capacity constraint by adjusting the price and maximum deal size. Furthermore, this research analyzes the variation of the optimal strategies under a decreasing capacity constraint. Besides, this research also discuss the impact of the minimum deal size, the sale fee on GB website and the customers transfer and buy rate on the selection of optimal strategies. Counter-intuitively, this research shows that even under a tense capacity, selling out the capacity may be not the optimal strategy to the seller. This means when sellers use the extra capacity to sell through GB website, taking advantage of advertisement effect by selling part of the capacity may be better than selling out. Last but not the least, this research also finds that raising price is better than setting the upper deal size limit when both methods are optional for the seller to bring back the demand within the capability.