互联网平台企业定价策略与用户获取——来自中国外卖行业的经验证据  

Pricing Strategies and User Acquisition of the Internet Platform Firm:An Empirical Evidence from China's Online Takeaway Industry

作　　者：李世杰 LI Shijie(School of Economics,Nankai University)

机构地区：[1]南开大学经济学院,300071

出　　处：《经济研究》2023年第6期84-101,共18页Economic Research Journal

基　　金：国家自然科学基金地区科学项目(71963012)的阶段性成果。

摘　　要：互联网市场的“赢家通吃”特征,依赖于平台定价策略优先推动平台用户规模增长。本文梳理了互联网平台定价策略的研究文献,考察互联网平台定价水平的分布特征,探讨阶梯式定价策略及其产业实践对平台用户规模的影响机理;结合外卖平台的产业实践数据,采用条件推断树模型等分析策略予以验证,解析阶梯式定价策略本质特征。研究发现:互联网平台企业阶梯式定价策略将消费者划分在零价格、象征性价格及盈利性价格的不同分组中,以期形成蓄水池式的用户规模梯队结构,进而实现扩大用户规模、培育消费者支付意愿、掠夺消费者剩余等策略性目标联动,既能维持庞大用户规模,又能获取稳定的平台利润。该定价机制与价格歧视理论的本质差异在于:阶梯式定价策略通过平台定价析出平台用户分组;价格歧视理论通过平台用户分组设置分组定价。During the past decade,Internet platform firms(such as takeaway platforms and online video platforms)change the free pricing strategy to a special pricing strategy,i.e.,free of charge for some consumers and charging others real fees.Moreover,real fees upsurge from zero step by step.Thus,we name this special pricing strategy“ladder pricing strategy.”The previous studies deliberate the motivation and impact of the ladder pricing strategy and find that Internet platforms adopt the ladder pricing strategy to enhance platform profit.However,the black box of ladder pricing strategy affecting platform profit has not been opened due to the neglect of the role of platform user scale in the previous work.Combined with the calculation rules of platform profit,it can be known that the impact of the ladder pricing strategy on platform profit is completed by the ladder pricing strategy and platform user scale.Before deliberating the impact of the ladder pricing strategy on platform profit,we should investigate the influence mechanism of the ladder pricing strategy on the platform user scale.Accordingly,our work focuses on how the ladder pricing strategy helps the Internet platform to obtain platform user scale.We review the theoretical evolution of the ladder pricing strategy,and investigate its theoretical boundaries and uniqueness.Combining the two influence factors of consumer purchase decisions,i.e.,commodity price and quality,we examine the industrial practice basis of the ladder pricing strategy and put forward three theoretical hypotheses.Furthermore,statistical analysis models such as the conditional inference tree model are used to test hypotheses.The sample consists of the consumer-level aggregate data crawled from the Meituan Takeaway Platform in China with Python.We draw the following conclusions.Firstly,the ladder pricing strategy has different theoretical boundaries and uniqueness from the previous pricing strategies for Internet platforms.The empirical conclusions display that both the price elasticity of de

关 键 词：互联网平台企业 阶梯式定价策略 平台用户规模 外卖行业 

分 类 号：F724.6[经济管理—产业经济] F719.3F274