競爭廠商之產品策略與網路通路策略

The Optimal Product Design and Internet Channel Design of Competitive Firms

本論文利用賽局理論探討網路興起後不完全競爭廠商之均衡產品與通路策略。網路興起後，提供廠商另一個銷售產品的通路選擇。相較於傳統的實體通路，網路通路可以節省消費者的出門購物成本，同時也提供廠商在原有產品上附加生產「網路屬性」的機會，以滿足上網消費者與產品相關之各種延伸性需求。在假設網路屬性帶給上網族消費者的效用適中之情況下，本研究發現當網路屬性所帶來的產品優勢相較於實體通路的相對劣勢相差並不懸殊時，如果非上網族相較於上網族消費者的比例夠高、實體通路的相對劣勢夠小，均衡時可能一家廠商放棄附加網路屬性並採用純網路通路，另一廠商則生產附加網路屬性的產品，並採用純實體通路，以緩和在上網族市場的競爭。

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the optimal product and distribution channel strategies for imperfectly competitive firms. The emergence of the Internet provides a new form of distribution channels for firms. The Internet channel allows consumers who can access the Internet to save their shopping cost by purchasing products on the Net. Also with the prevalence of the Internet, firms may consider whether to add some web attribute to their basic products in order to meet the extended needs of their customers on the Net. For example, a marketer can add some web attribute to a computer game so that consumers can play with each other on the Net, thus increasing the valuation of online users to the product. The objectives of this paper are two-fold. First, we want to study how the competing firms’ product strategies affect their channel and pricing strategies. Second, we want to study how the equilibrium product strategy depends on the proportion of the Internet users, the utility of Internet users attached to the web attribute, and the efficiency of the Internet channel relative to the conventional channel. Many researchers and practitioners have been interested in the impacts of the Internet on marketing strategies. However, most studies focus either on pricing strategy or on product strategy despite both strategies are closely related to marketers’ channel choices. This paper considers the firms’ product, distribution channel and pricing strategies simultaneously to capture the interactions among them. In this way, we are able to derive the equilibrium product strategy of competing firms which takes into account the effects of product strategies on firms’ channel and pricing strategies. Thus under a game-theoretic framework, we consider two firms simultaneously choose first whether to add an on-online attribute to their products, then their distribution channel strategies (pure offline, pure online or dual channels), and finally their prices. Assuming the utility attached to the web attribute by Internet consumers is moderate, we find that when the product advantage created by the web attribute and the disadvantage of the offline channel do not differ significantly, in equilibrium one firm may give up the web attribute to differentiate itself from its rival. When it happens, under some parameter conditions (to be explained below), the firm offering the product with the web attribute adopts the conventional channel while the one offering the product without the web attribute adopts the Internet channel. First note that when the utility of Internet users attached to the web attribute is moderate, neither firm is able to capture all Internet users by its product advantage (i.e., having the web attribute) or by its channel advantage (i.e., adopting the Internet channel) to Internet users. In this situation, the firm offering the product without the web attribute adopts the pure online channel to soften the competition with its rival by giving up offline users to its rival. As for the firm offering the product with the web attribute, its channel choice depends on the proportion of offline users relative to that of Internet users and the disadvantage of the offline channel. If the disadvantage of the offline channel (i.e., the extra shopping cost consumers incur at the offline channel) is low enough and/or the relative proportion of offline users is high enough, the firm offering the product with the web attribute can charge a higher price to Internet users when adopting the pure-offline channel than when adopting dual channels; the higher the utility attached to the web attribute by Internet users, the more likely in equilibrium the firm with product advantage (i.e., offering the product with the web attribute) adopts the pure-offline channel to soften the competition in the Internet market and increase its profits.