| Platform Economy,as a typical representative of digital economy,is a new economic model.The digital economy has accelerated during the pandemic.According to the National Bureau of Statistics,the Online retail sales in China reached 11.7601 trillion in 2020,increased 10.9% over the previous year,while other indicators of national economic operation showed negative growth.In 2021,China was under normal control of the epidemic.The annual online retail sales of physical goods reached10,804.2 trillion yuan,year-on-year growth of 12.0%,accounting for 24.5% of the total retail sales of consumer goods.Obviously,the continuous expansion of the scale and proportion in online retail has effectively helped China’s economy run smoothly in the globalization epidemic,and this countertrend growth has also had a profound impact on the long-term economic and social development.In terms of the current development stage of domestic platform economy,the platform market with the Self-owned mall and Registered merchants—as a thriving economic medium—the trading market of Internet platform develops rapidly,which can meet the needs of diversified commodities and guarantee the stable input of market flow.This model has become the ideal market type of the self-innovation platform.However,by comparing the self-owned mall and registered merchants in the real platform,it is not difficult to find that the price of self-owned mall is generally higher than that of the registered merchants for the homogeneous product.This condition of price difference is also known as market price dispersion.Even if the price of selfowned mall’s goods is higher,however,the sales volume of goods does not decrease but increases,and even is much higher than the market transaction share of registered merchants.This market reality goes against the traditional economic theory that "the lower the price,the more you buy".In addition,monopoly incidents of Internet platforms occurred frequently in reality.Alibaba was fined for monopoly,and Meituan was registered for suspected monopoly.One wonders: What is the logic behind the paradox of market equilibrium? In reality,is it for the cultivation of their monopoly position by setting relatively high prices of self-owned mall?In addition to the more urgent interpretation of practical problems,from the theoretical perspective,price dispersion in the platform market has also become an important focus of theoretical research on the Internet economy.In 1961,George J.Stigler,winner of the Nobel Prize in economics,conducted a study on price dispersion in his book The Economics of Information.The original price dispersion refers to the deviation degree of the homogeneous commodities’ price distribution,which is mainly caused by whether the market information interaction is sufficient.With the promotion and use of information technologies such as search engines,the "one price law" hypothesis is believed by many scholars to be realized in the Internet economy under the circumstance that the cost of price search is greatly reduced.However,a large number of practical evidence in recent years shows that price dispersion still exists significantly in the Internet trading market.At the same time,the direct application of the traditional pricing strategy has been unable to adapt to the new network market,because of some factors in the traditional pricing theory are weaken or even eliminated by the virtual performance of the Internet platform.Therefore,the third question arises:different from the traditional real economy,what are the factors that affect price dispersion in the Internet market? Faced with the four characteristics,the problem of merchant pricing in the Internet platform urgently needs a new theoretical research mechanism.This research is of great necessity to promote the long-term and stable development of China’s platform economy and even the overall economy.At present,the existing research is scattered,some are limited to a simple list of factors,some are limited to the analysis of the impact of a factor,lack of systematic analysis of pricing factors.Whether the actual operation law in the whole real market is as applicable as the theoretical analysis needs further verification.In addition,due to the availability of data,researches on Internet platform pricing are mostly theoretical and model-building,so there are few empirical studies.In particular,there is a lack of research on the price discretization between self-owned mall and registered merchants.Therefore,on the basis of previous studies,this paper will try to clarify the theoretical logic of supply and demand equilibrium in the Internet market through comparative analysis of self-owned mall and registered merchants,so as to enrich the research on price dispersion of the two types of merchants in the platform market.In addition,this paper tries to connect price dispersion with platform regulation,deduce the evolution trend of platform market competition,and try to put forward more forward-looking opinions about the reality.This paper takes the price dispersion in the Internet platform market as the research object and systematically explores the causes and dynamic evolution trend of price dispersion in the Internet platform market.In this paper,the influence mechanism of the three market participants’ behaviors on the discrete formation of price in the platform market is considered respectively through the comparative analysis of the self-owned and registered merchants.Firstly,based on the platform perspective,focusing on the mixed market environment,through theoretical deduction and simulation research method,this paper analyzes the mechanism of platform fees on the price dispersion.The theoretical deduction is based on Armstrong’s bilateral market registration fee utility model,adding consumer preference and search behavior into the analysis conditions,combined with the optimization solution method,this part analyzes the impact of the platform fees on price dispersion in the Internet market.Secondly,from the perspective of merchants,through theoretical deduction and empirical analysis,the influence effect of retailers’ service difference on market price dispersion is analyzed.The theoretical model used here is based on the demand function proposed by Tsay & Agrawal(2000),and innovatively adds service elements to explore the internal mechanism of whether merchants’ services have value-added effect on price improvement.Thirdly,from the perspective of consumers,different preferences of consumers produce different degrees of premium willingness.This part theoretically discusses the influence mechanism and related factors of value perception on the general principle of pricing and applies zeithaml’s psychological value perception to the problem of pricing.Then the empirical analysis method is used to investigate the relationship between consumer value perception and price dispersion.It should be pointed out that the empirical data in this paper came from dangdang,a real platform,from which books with strong homogeneity were selected.Python was used to capture data and then clean them.Finally,a total of 4,541 groups and 10,9185 pieces of effective data information were obtained.In addition to the above three specific analyses,this paper further combined the market equilibrium theory with the comprehensive mechanism analysis on the behavior of three market subjects about price dispersion,so as to interpret the internal logic of platform market equilibrium paradox.Meanwhile,this paper also consider the discrete price linked with platform monopoly regulation,through the platform enterprise has the intention to monopolize a market hypothesis,trying to build a three-phases dynamic function with price deduction platform business competition evolution trends,to have a dominant market position enterprise behavior analysis,so as to grasp the trend of market changes and regulate monopoly platform ideas to provide a foothold.Through the above analysis,this paper draws the following conclusions:Firstly,the platform’s three market participants have a significant impact on price dispersion.(1)From the perspective of platform,information asymmetry is no longer the main cause of price dispersion in the market.As a "bridge" connecting merchants and consumers in the network market,the Internet platform alleviates information asymmetry to a large extent.Secondly,the variable of the access fee and the usage fee significantly affects the price dispersion.The increase of platform fees will cause the price dispersion in the market to decrease firstly and then increase.Among the related variables,the effect of usage fee is greater than that of access fee.(2)From the perspective of merchants,service-oriented market is a new positioning of platform economy,and its service elements have bidirectional influence.It can not only help merchants to enhance the added value of goods,but also improve the acceptance of the premium of goods by meeting the service demand.Through theoretical and empirical analysis,this paper verifies the existence of service stratification in the Internet market,and the effect of value-added services is higher than that of basic services.And the stronger the value-added level of a single service,the greater the degree of price dispersion in the market is.(3)From the perspective of consumers,the relationship between value perception and reasonable pricing is increasingly close.Through theoretical and empirical analysis,this paper discusses the influence mechanism of value perception on the general principle of commodity pricing and concludes that each value element in the Internet market has different influence emphasis and deviation degree on the pricing of different merchants.And the greater the difference of value perception,the greater the degree of price dispersion in the market.Product quality,comment feedback and additional services can significantly improve the value perception of consumers.The influence effect of irrational factors on price dispersion in platform market reflected in this conclusion also makes Internet economy research have a new logic different from traditional economics.Secondly,by analyzing the comprehensive influence mechanism of the relevant factors of the three market entities on the price dispersion phenomenon,the traditional economic paradox that the price and market sales share of self-owned mall is higher than those of registered merchants is explained in this paper.According to the equilibrium theory of supply and demand,the implementation of charging rules will affect the upward left movement of the supply curve of the registered merchants.The enhancement of consumer value perception will make the demand function of merchants move up to the right.Merchant services can affect both the supply and demand curves.The higher the service level is,the higher the supply curve will move to the left and the demand curve will move to the right.Under the comprehensive effect,the market will present the price dispersion of two kinds of merchants with competitive relationship.From now on,the contradiction with traditional microeconomic theory can be explained.Thirdly,based on the assumption of monopoly platform,this paper analyzes the changes of discrete market prices in three phases,and puts forward some suggestions to prevent the risks of platform monopoly through the correlation between the periodic changes of pricing and the anti-monopoly regulation of platform.It is found that the monopolistic platform will use the commodity price for the self-owned merchant to control the price dispersion in the Internet market.In general,monopolistic platforms may adopt three-phases strategies: firstly,platform offers high prices to enter space and accumulate market traffic.Then platform cuts prices to occupy the market share of merchants.Finally,prices rise and yields remain high.Finally,this paper also puts forward some suggestions on the market decision optimization and anti-monopoly regulation of the platform which affect the price dispersion in the Internet market.To sum up: in terms of participating in the decisionmaking optimization of the main market,the platform charges reasonable fees to maintain the overall vitality of the market;Businesses pay attention to market demand trends,improve the rate of return on service;Consumers beware of misleading false perception and safeguard consumer interests.In terms of platform monopoly regulation,first of all,we should have a clear neutral understanding of the platform and attach great importance to technological innovation.Regulators should pay attention to the effect of law enforcement while focusing on legislation,so as to further promote the synergy and integration of Internet economy and real economy.In summary,this paper explores the causes and dynamic evolution trend of price dispersion in the Internet platform,and connects price dispersion with platform market behavior,so as to further analyze the prevention and regulation of platform monopoly risk.Through systematic analysis and research of the whole paper,on the one hand,this paper clarifies the factors influencing the stability of the overall market price,which has a certain marginal contribution to the elevation of the microeconomic theory,and has important theoretical significance to promote the innovation and development of price theory and platform monopoly risk prevention.On the other hand,this paper provides a practical basis for the overall efficiency optimization of the Internet economic market,and has practical reference significance in effective intervention to correct market failure and monopoly regulation. |
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