基于消费者分享行为的拼团销售模式选择和定价策略研究

Sales mode selection and pricing strategy of social group buying based on customer sharing behavior

基于消费者分享行为的拼团销售模式是电子商务与社交媒体有机融合下的有效营销手段之一。电子商务平台中,企业可策略性选择普通销售模式、单一拼团销售模式、混合销售模式进行产品销售。本文充分考虑消费者拼团行为的利他动机,分别构建企业采用这三种销售模式时的决策优化模型,并对模型进行求解,通过比较分析各决策模型的均衡状态,探讨企业对不同销售模式的最优选择及最优定价策略。在此基础上,本文进一步分析消费者构成特征对企业最优策略的影响。研究发现,消费者构成特征直接影响企业销售模式选择策略:整体而言,混合销售模式要优于另外两个销售模式,而当两类消费者对产品初始感知价值差异很高,且高价值消费者市场分布比例处于某种适中水平时,存在普通销售模式中高价策略优于混合销售策略的情形;无论采用何种销售模式,两类消费者初始感知价值差异越大或高价值消费者市场分布比例越高,均使得企业更加倾向于采用高价格策略。

The continuous development of social media promotes the popularity of social marketing strategies based on customers′sharing behavior.Social-group-buying is one of the social marketing strategies.With considering the motives of customers′sharing behavior,we develop mathematical models to discuss when the social group buying strategy is optimal for the firm by comparing optimal profits in different sales modes such as individual-buying sales mode,pure social-group-buying sales mode and mixed sales mode,which are widely used in electronic marketing practices.From the prospective of marketing practices,we also discuss the equilibrium price in different sales strategies to help the firm effectively regulate the product sales and profits.Furthermore,we analyze how the structure characteristics of customers,such as the proportion of high value customers and the degree of valuation variance between the high value customers and the low value customers,impact the firm′s optimal marketing strategy.Based on the research purpose,we firstly learn from the similar work of Jing and Xie(2011),in which they assume that:(1)there are two kinds of customers(the high value customers and the low value customers)in the market,and the proportion of the two types of customers in the market satisfies the two-point distribution;(2)the difference in product valuation between the two types of customers results from their product information gap,i.e.the informed customers with high valuation and the less-informed customers with low valuation,and the product information sharing between customers only exists in the form of high value customers sharing with low-value consumers in social-group-buying sales mode,i.e.the sharers can only be the high value customers and the receivers can only be the low value customers.Combined with the characteristics of customers′sharing behavior in social group buying practice,we improve the assumption(2)of Jing and Xie with the two new ideas that:a.the sharers are the customers who perceive the existence of product first,they can be not only the high value customers,but also the low value customers,accordingly,the receivers also can be the high value customers or the low value customers;b.in the mixed mode,the motives for customers to share product information to their friends include firm-offered lower price and the altruism incentives.Then,we start with the improved assumptions to develop optimization models for the three sales modes,respectively.By solving the analytical models,we show the equilibrium price and profits in different sales modes under the same market situation.After that,we explore the optimal sales mode and optimal pricing strategy for the firm under the different conditions.Thus,we can find out the conditions under which the social group buying strategies are optimal for the firm.At last,we further reveal the impact of the proportion of high value customers and the degree of valuation variance between the high value customers and the low value customers on the firm′s optimal sales strategy and optimal pricing strategy.The results indicate that,social group buying mode is better than the individual buying mode,on the whole.Moreover,the mixed sales mode is always better than the pure social-group-buying sales mode.In the mixed sales mode,the customer altruism preference has positive effects on the firm′s optimal profits.Only when the degree of valuation variance between the high value customers and the low customers is in the high range,there exists the condition under which the high price strategy in individual-buying sales mode is more effective than the mixed mode.It depends on both of the proportion of high value customers and the persuasion efficiency of the customers:when the persuasion efficiency is very low and the proportion of the high value customers is in a medium range,the high price strategy in individual-buying sales mode is more effective than the mixed sales mode.The structure characteristics of customers impact the firm′s optimal pricing strategy of each sales mode in the following ways:(1)when the proportion of high value customers is high,the firm tends to use high price strategy;(2)when the degree of valuation variance between the high value customers and the low customers is high,the firm tends to use high price strategy.It is more interesting that Jing and Xie show that the equilibrium group-buying price in mixed sales mode is lower than the equilibrium group-buying price in pure social-group-buying sales mode,but we draw the contrary result that on the basis of fully considering the altruistic motive of consumers′sharing behavior.In summary,on the basis of the characteristics of customers′sharing behavior in the social-group-buying marketing practice,we learn from and improve the assumptions of the existing research work to carry out research on sales mode selection and pricing strategy of social-group-buying.This work not only provides certain practical guiding significance,but also enriches the theoretical research.