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Price Dispersion Of E-commerce Market

Posted on:2006-05-18Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:D M ZhaoFull Text:PDF
GTID:1116360152492504Subject:Management Science and Engineering
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Price dispersion, defined as the distribution of prices of an item across sellers in one market at a given point time, is the comprehensive reflection of market structure and the information flows state. Studying the price dispersion of E-commerce is essential prerequisite for examining the rising market efficiency, and analyzes the behavior of the firm and customer. It has significant meaning to understand present situation and development of the new Economic.In general view, the price dispersion of the traditional market is the appearance of price balance as the customer for high searching costs. But the result of recently research abroad show that it was not be narrower in the e-commerce market. Though theoretical and empirical study, this thesis analyzed the cause of the price dispersion in e-commerce market, explained objective phenomenon that why the price dispersion in e-commerce market is not narrowed but expansion as the search cost of price is reduced obviously, reconcile the inconsistencies between theoretical predictions and the empirical findings. The main content includes: (1) Current situation analysis of e-commerce market. (2) Structure and balanced of e-commerce market. (3) Basic cause of dispersion of the E-commerce market. (4) Price difference caused by the marketing channel; (5)Convergence and expansion of price dispersion; (6) empirical study of e-commerce market.The result indicates, price dispersion is not the unripe transient phenomenon of e-commerce market; it will exist generally and continuously. Firstly, E-commerce market will not trend to be frictionless, a complete competitive market. The element in the information space which plays a decisive role in the market, is objective really but difficult to control. The trade decision of participator in E-commerce market is also made under an uncompleted information station. Secondly, When consumers perceive the Internet branch of bricks-and-mortar retailer to be superior to the pure play e-tailer, the bricks-and-mortar will launch an Internet branch and charge a price higher then the pure play e-tailer. Thirdly, There is no monotonic relationship between the proportions of consumer who are informed. Even in e-commerce market, The price dispersion will not fall as more people informed or search cost goes down. The phenomena will exist as long as some consumers are brand sensitive and/or not all consumers are fully aware of all available retailers and price. The empirical result indicates that the market characteristics of product are the main reason of price dispersion. The heterogeneity in the services offered by e-tailers is only responsible for a limited portion of variation in the e-tailer prices and that the drivers of e-tailer price are different across the clusters.
Keywords/Search Tags:E-commerce, price dispersion, e-tailer, Market Efficiency
PDF Full Text Request
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