Consumer Profiling via Information Design

Itay Fainmesser, Andrea Galeotti, Ruslan Momot and Ludovic Renou

No 22116, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: A platform profiles consumers using their purchase histories and selectively discloses information to successive short-lived sellers. By shaping sellers' prices, the platform generates new purchase data and improves its profiles. With short-lived consumers, the platform can learn valuations below a threshold but cannot distinguish valuations above it. The threshold is the lowest price that sellers would not want to raise for any consumer, even if they knew that all consumers would accept it. With long-lived consumers, the platform can learn every valuation. We also characterize attainable combinations of consumer and producer surplus as the platform becomes arbitrarily patient.

Keywords: Information design; consumer profiling; Platform markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D4 D8 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-11
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