考慮認知品質下探討折扣策略的長期獲利性

Abstract

折扣是一種廣泛被各類商家採用的手段，這種價格促銷的商業行為經常可以在我們日常生活中被觀察到。藉由提供折扣，商家降低產品或服務的價格來刺激短期銷售量，因而增加短期獲利。然而一旦價格降低，消費者可能會對折扣的原因感到疑惑，因而對產品的品質有所疑慮。許多過去的研究都發現折扣確實可能會降低顧客對產品的認知價值，並且對長期獲利造成負面的影響。換言之，因為可能會導至消費者對這項產品的認知品質惡化，折扣的確可能造成商家長期獲利下降。 在考量折扣會對消費者的認知品質造成負面影響為前提下，本研究探討折扣策略的長期獲利性，並試圖去了解在什麼樣的環境下，商家採用折扣作為商業的手段才真的能使自己受益。本研究利用賽局理論的形式提出一個數學模型來描述折扣行為中所有參與者、行為以及互動，並使用非線性最佳化來求得均衡解、辨別最佳的折扣策略，並且分析結果。本研究在最後使用數值研究來驗證先前的結果，並得到一些新的觀察。 本研究發現產品本身的原始價格和真實的品質在商家的折扣策略中扮演重要的角色。當一個產品的原始價格足以反映其真實品質時，提供折扣將能使商家有利可圖；反之，使用折扣可能損害商家利益。此外，消費者的認知品質對折扣的敏感度（可能因產品特性或環境而不同）在商家的決策中也擔當很重要的角色。

As one of the most well-recognized price promotion activities, discounts have been widely used by all kinds of sellers. Discounts increase the sales by reducing the price of a product/service and directly increase the short-term profit. However, once the price becomes lower, customers who are uncertain about the reason may have a quality concern about the product. Previous studies have shown that discounts may deteriorate a customer’s perceived value to a product/service and cause negative consequences for the long-term profit. This then reduces the perceived quality of the product and poses potential loss for future profits. In this thesis, we investigate the long-term profitability of a discounting strategy. By taking into consideration the impact of discounts on perceived quality, we try to realize under what circumstances a discount-offering strategy is indeed an instrument to benefit sellers. To conduct our research, a game-theoretic model is proposed to describe the players, the actions, and the interaction between a seller and customers. Nonlinear optimization is used to analytically solve for equilibria, identify the optimal discounting strategies, and analyze the results. Furthermore, some numerical studies are conducted to verify the results and extract some more intrinsic insights. Our research finds that a product’s original price and its true quality serve important roles in a seller’s discounting strategy. When a product’s original price is close enough to reflect its true quality, a discounting strategy could be beneficial; otherwise, offering a discount could be harmful. Moreover, we show that the sensitivity for customers to a price reduction acts as a vital role in a seller’s decision as well.