The Research On Pricing Model Of Online Ride-hailing Platform Based On Two-sided Markets Theory

In recent years,with the advent of the "Internet Plus" era,as the emerging "Internet +traffic" travel mode,Online ride-hailing,Shared cars,and Shared Bicycles have emerged that penetrated the transportation sector with the aid of the Internet and big data technologies.The rise of the Online ride-hailing,on the one hand,has effectively alleviated the long-standing problem of "Taxi Difficulty" in big cities,to a large extent,solved the information asymmetry of the taxi industry through intelligent technology.Its convenient and efficient way of taxiing service not only meets the personalized travel demands of consumers,but also effectively reduces the driver's high empty rate,bring much convenience for consumers and drivers.On the other hand,in the process of the development of the platform,burnt subsidies,free fare increases,pricing opaque and other issues are questioned by many people,the major platforms were once in surplus.Therefore,the platforms urgently need to explore a reasonable pricing mechanism,to establish a clear profit model to promote the healthy and sustainable development of the Online ride-hailing industry.Online ride-hailing platform serves as a service intermediary to provide services for both sides of the user.One side is the consumer with the demand for travel,the other side is the driver to provide travel service,the three parts constitute a typical Two-Sided market.Referring to the basic pricing theory of Two-Sided markets,constructs the Two-Sided market theory model of the consumer-platform-driver,studies how the pricing and profit are changing when the drivers and passengers are in the monopolistic and competitive market structure.Secondly,further expand the competitive Online ride-hailing platform to study the pricing and profitability of the platform where users have multiple attributions,and deeply analysis and explain the pricing mechanism and competitive strategies of the platform with dual market attributes.The results show that:(1)In the monopolistic two-sided markets,the pricing of customers and drivers on the Online ride-hailing platform is not only related to their marginal transaction cost of the platform and the user's price elasticity of demand for the platform,but also to the cross-network externalities between the platform-registered consumer and driver users.While platform transaction costs is increasing,user's pricing is increasing.Users who have a strong cross-network externality will have a low-cost strategy.For users with high demand price elasticity,the platform sets a low price for them.In the dual role of cross-network externalities and user demand price elasticity,the platform will generally carry out “inclined pricing”.(2)In the competitive market,Online ride-hailing pricing is not onlyaffected by the cross-network externalities generated by consumers and drivers,but also related to the degree of platform differentiation of products or services provided by competitive platforms.The higher the level of platform differentiation,the higher the user's pricing and the higher the profit,suggesting that the platform operates differently and improves its competitiveness.(3)Comparing the pricing and profit of the three ownership structures of the competitive platform,It is found that when the users are both single-homed and multi-homed,the pricing of both sides of the single-homed is higher than that of the partial multi-homing.When one side user is single-homed,the other side user is multiple-homed,the platform tends to set low prices on the side of multi-homing,while setting higher prices on single-homing.Under the three ownership structures,the platform has the highest profit level when users are single-homed.Therefore,the competitive Online ride-hailing platform has a motive to curb user multi-homing.(4)Whether it is a monopoly platform or a competitive platform,the cross-network externalities between consumers and drivers are reversed from the profits of the platform.In a competitive platform platform,the higher degree of differentiation will help increase the profit of the platform.This paper partly explain the pricing phenomenon in the development of online dating vehicles,which can provide a reference for the development of reasonable pricing strategies and clear profit models for the Online ride-hailing platform.