Research On Dynamic Pricing Strategies Of New And Old Customers Under Horizontal Merger Of Platform Enterprises

With the continuous advancement of the commercialization of the Internet,platform-based companies in the bilateral market have emerged as a new economic carrier.Such enterprises often connect two(or more)specific groups and make profits by making platform services to facilitate interactions or transactions between users to meet their respective needs.When platform companies are faced with two(or more)different types of market demands,formulating a reasonable pricing strategy is crucial for the effectiveness of bilateral users and even the market share of the platform.In the face of complex competition,a single,static pricing model is no longer sufficient to meet the competition needs of platform companies.Differentiating between old and new users,adoption of dynamic pricing will become a more common pricing method and will be widely used by platform companies.In recent years,platform companies have competed for bilateral users and expanded their bilateral market share.Horizontal mergers of platform companies have emerged in an endless stream.Two major taxi platforms,such as Didi taxis and fast taxis,announced the merger;58 local city and Goji.com announced the merger of two major local information service platforms;the domestic two major video websites Youku and Tudou announced the merger,and so on.Therefore,this paper uses the horizontal merger of platform companies in recent years as the research background.Based on the theory of bilateral markets,through the establishment of Salop's circular city model,the platform companies that participated in the merger and did not participate in the merger were merged before and after the horizontal merger.Study the changes in equilibrium profits,and explore the factors that influence these changes.The study found:(1)When there is a platform for horizontal integration in the bilateral market,before the platform is horizontally merged,before discriminating pricing in the second stage,the platform sets the same pricing strategy for both new and old users,and the pricing and the market share in the first stage,Network externalities and marginal costs are related.In the second stage,the pricing of new users on the platform is lower than that of the old users.The discriminatory pricing and profits of the platform companies on old and new users all decrease with the increase of the externalities of the cross-network;when there is a platform on the bilateral market After a horizontal merger,whether it is a merged platform or a platform that does not participate in the merger,it will not always preferentially offer new users when discriminating against bilateral users.The pricing of new and old users depends on the cross-network externalities.the size of.After the horizontal merger,the pricing and profit of the platform for the bilateral users is increased or decreased compared with that before the merger.It also depends on the size of the cross-network externalities between the bilateral users.(2)When the platform implements a unified pricing strategy for both new and old customers,before the horizontal merger,the two stages of the platform's dynamic pricing are independent,and in two stages,the platform's pricing for bilateral users and the equilibrium profits obtained by the platform are the same;After the horizontal merger,the two-stage dynamic pricing strategy formulated by the platform is still independent,and the profits of the platform companies participating in the horizontal merger are always greater than those of the platforms that did not participate in the horizontal merger.The horizontal merger behavior has different effects on the merger participant platform and non-participation platform.From a pricing strategy point of view,horizontal mergers and acquisitions have allowed horizontal and non-horizontally consolidated platforms to increase pricing for bilateral new and old use in the second phase;from a profit perspective,horizontal mergers have enhanced the profitability of the combined party platform.For unconsolidated platforms,the increase or decrease of their profits depends on the strength of the cross-network externalities.(3)In the first stage before the horizontal merger,the unified pricing strategy priced the bilateral users lower than the discriminatory pricing strategy.In the second stage before the horizontal merger,the second stage is the opposite;and after the horizontal merger,the platform is bilateral.The change in the user's pricing difference depends on the strength of the cross-network externality between the bilateral users.Before the horizontal merger of the platform,discriminatory pricing reduced the profit of the platform.After the horizontal merger,dynamic pricing in different ways,whether on the merged platform or the unconsolidated platform,makes the profit of the platform increase or decrease depending on the magnitude of the external strength of the intersecting network.