Peer-to-Peer Sharing in the E-Commerce Market

Koharu Nakao ()
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Koharu Nakao: Graduate School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University

No 277, Discussion Paper Series from School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University

Abstract: This study focuses on the e-commerce market and analyzes the pricing behavior of a peer- to-peer platform that intermediates transactions between consumers (individuals). We investigate how the platform's profit,price of goods, and fee rate are affected by whether the platform charges the fee to sellers or buyers. By comparing the case of charging a fee to sellers (most real-world cases) with that of buyers (a benchmark), we show that the platform's equilibrium profit is equivalent, whereas we obtain contrasting results when analyzing the equilibrium goods price and equilibrium fee rate. Specifically, when the seller's supply cost increases, the price of goods increases more in the case of charging a fee to buyers than sellers, causing the fee rate to fall drastically. However, the level of goods price is higher and that of fee rate is lower in the case of charging a fee to sellers than buyers.

Keywords: sharing economy; peer-to-peer; e-commerce; fee; platform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D21 L11 L81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2024-09, Revised 2025-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ind, nep-mic and nep-pay
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http://192.218.163.163/RePEc/pdf/kgdp277.pdf Revised version, 2025 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kgu:wpaper:277

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