基于消费者损失效用的概率销售策略研究

随着网络信息技术的迅猛发展,概率销售作为一种新颖的销售策略广泛应用于旅游业。在双寡头销售商竞争销售背景下,两销售商分别向损失中性和损失厌恶型消费者销售高档产品和概率产品(中低档产品打包成概率产品)。本文首先运用博弈方法建立了损失中性下的概率销售模型,揭示了产品质量对销售商策略的影响。考虑到消费者在购买概率产品后存在期望损失,我们进一步构建了损失厌恶下的概率销售模型,研究了期望损失对概率销售策略的影响。研究表明期望损失为概率销售商实施概率销售提供了可能性,同时可以增加概率销售商的利润,但可能会损害其竞争者的利益;销售商是否采用概率销售策略主要取决于消费者对购买损失和选择损失的敏感度。最后给出了数值应用结果及管理学启示。

Probabilistic Selling Policy Based on Consumers' Loss Utility

With rapid development of information technology, probabilistic selling, as a novel sales strategy, has been used widely in travel industry. The consumers' anticipated loss and its role are explored in a competitive market consisted of a vertical random product and its transparent rival. In our two-firm model, one firm (Firm H) provides a product with high quality (product H) and sells it transparently. The other firm (Firm R) provides two products with lower and different qualities (products M and L) and can mix them to create any possible random products, in addition to transparent products M and L. It starts with the benchmark case in which consumers have loss neutrality. It is shown that Firm R offers the random product only when the quality of product H is intermediate. When product H's quality is too high, Firm R offers product M because the product differentiation is large enough and it can extract more surplus from the consumers who value quality without worrying much about competition. When product H's quality is too low, Firm R will only offer product L to maximize differentiation from product H. Therefore, when the quality of product H is intermediate, a random product that mixes M and L should be offered to better balance surplus extraction and product differentiation by adjusting the probability of obtaining L. The case is then explored in which consumers can anticipate the potential-post purchase loss. Our results suggest that the consumers' anticipated loss can actually incentivize the firm to adopt probabilistic selling, depending on the relative magnitude of consumers' sensitivity to purchase loss and selection loss. Furthermore, even when consumers are extremely averse to selection loss, the random product should still be provided because of the benefits from the "reverse quality discrimination." Moreover, numerical application results and some parameters sensitivity analysis are given. Finally, some feasible and practical management insights are gotten.