Price competition in the presence of a web aggregator

Oksana Loginova () and Andrea Mantovani

Journal of Economics, 2019, vol. 126, issue 1, No 3, 43-73

Abstract: Abstract In this paper we examine the impact of a web aggregator on firms and consumers in a horizontally differentiated market. When a firm pays a fee to be listed on the aggregator’s website, its location and price become observable to e-users (consumers who visit the website). We consider two settings, depending on the possibility for online firms to offer discounts to e-users. In equilibrium, not all firms will go online—some will choose to remain offline. Online firms attract more customers due to the higher level of information, but face a tougher price competition. When the proportion of e-users is relatively low, price discrimination may hurt the firms. Therefore, less of them can afford to go online. The opposite holds when e-users predominate; price discrimination yields a higher number of online firms than uniform pricing. Finally, we evaluate the aggregator’s optimal policy regarding the fee and whether to impose uniform pricing or to allow price discrimination. We discover that, unless the proportion of e-users is relatively low, the aggregator induces only a few firms to go online.

Keywords: Online reviews aggregators; Price discrimination; Competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D43 D61 L11 L13 M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Price Competition in the Presence of a Web Aggregator (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jeczfn:v:126:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s00712-018-0612-6

DOI: 10.1007/s00712-018-0612-6

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