如何推动绿色消费升级?——电商策略性调价行为与节能产品需求特征

How to Promote Green Consumption Upgrading?E-commerce Strategic Price Adjustment Behavior and Demand Characteristics of Energy-Saving Products

电商可以通过频繁且较大幅度的调价来吸引消费者注意力,进而改变产品销量结构。这一做法是否与推动绿色节能产品销售的导向相契合,将直接关系到绿色消费升级的进程。本文将影响消费者注意力的调价活跃度因素引入嵌套离散选择模型,并利用京东、苏宁两家电商2020年6月~2022年2月空调产品的价格、销量、型号及功能属性数据,在估计结构化参数的基础上计算价格弹性并考察调价行为的市场反应。研究发现,总体上消费者对高能效属性的偏好正在形成,但对产品核心功能的选择先于能效水平;在核心功能相同的情况下,低能效产品自价格弹性更高、利润率更低且对调价行为更敏感,电商因此对其采取了更为活跃的调价策略来扩大销量、增加利润,这会对高能效产品销售产生不利影响。反事实分析结果表明,降低线上渠道中低能效产品的调价活跃度可产生类似于以绿色消费补贴促进高能效产品销售的效果。据此,本文提出以减少线上价格混淆、优化产品能效与功能组合、引导顾客注意高能效产品等推进绿色消费升级的政策建议。

E-commerce can attract consumers' attention through frequent and large price adjustments, thereby changing the product sales structure. Whether this approach is consistent with the guidance of promoting the sales of green energy-saving products will be directly related to the process of green consumption upgrading. We introduce the price adjustment activity factors that affect consumers' attention into a nested discrete choice model, and the price, sales volume, model and functional attribute data of air conditioning products of JD and Suning from June 2020 to February 2022 are used to calculate the price elasticity and investigate the market response of price adjustment behavior after estimating structured parameters. The empirical research found that overall preferences for energy-efficient feature are developing, but consumers' choice of core features precedes energy efficiency levels. For products with the same core function, those with low energy efficiency have higher price elasticity, lower profit margin and are more sensitive to price adjustment, so e-commerce companies have adopted more active price adjustment strategies to expand sales and increase profits, which will have an adverse impact on the sales of high energy efficiency products. Counterfactual analysis shows that reducing the price adjustment activities of low energy efficiency products in online channels can have an effect similar to that of promoting the sales of high energy efficiency products with green consumption subsidies.Therefore, policy implications that reducing online price confusion, optimizing the combination between products' energy efficiency and core function, and guiding customers to pay attention to high energy efficiency products are made for promoting green consumption upgrading.