Pricing for Online Food Service Considering Green Awareness of Customers and Green Efforts of Restaurants

Tianhua Zhang, Xin Li and Yiwen Zhang ()
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Tianhua Zhang: College of Business Administration, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing 100070, China
Xin Li: School of Management Engineering, Shandong Jianzhu University, Jinan 250101, China
Yiwen Zhang: College of Business Administration, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing 100070, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: In recent years, the development of online food service has facilitated consumers’ catering needs, but it also has adverse environmental impacts. To mitigate pollution and attract environmentally conscious customers, restaurants have embarked on making green efforts, such as donating to environmental charities, using organic ingredients, and adopting green packaging. This study investigates the pricing strategies of restaurants that currently engage in green efforts. We develop demand models for online food services, considering customer green awareness and competition among restaurants. Both competitive pricing problems with symmetric and asymmetric information are discussed. The Nash equilibrium and Bayesian Nash equilibrium are derived in these scenarios. Optimal pricing strategies are presented, and the impacts of parameters on the optimal strategies are discussed. Our findings reveal that when the baseline utility derived from a green restaurant is lower than that from a regular restaurant, and customers are not highly concerned about environmental protection, the online food service from the green restaurant may have no market share. If the baseline utility derived from green restaurant services is higher than that from regular restaurant services, the optimal price tends to increase as the green utility increases. However, if the baseline utility derived from the green service falls within a certain range, the optimal price may first increase and then decrease as the green utility rises.

Keywords: pricing; online food; green awareness; green efforts; competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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