4 Presentations

• 
  10:30 AM - 10:55 AM

  Strategic analysis of e-platform supply chain decisions

  • Fatemeh Zand, presenter, HEC Montréal

  Our study delves into a platform supply chain that comprises a manufacturer and an e-platform, alongside a secondary marketplace. Drawing inspiration from real-world industrial scenarios, we explore the roles of the marketplace and the retailing channel within the e-platform. We outline the optimal operational strategies for this platform supply chain, considering various supplier market encroachment strategies. Furthermore, we conduct a comparison of supplier encroachment strategies, developing an analytical framework to show how to choose the optimal strategy and the critical factors influencing this decision within the platform supply chain. Additionally, we analyze the dynamics of optimal collect and resell strategies for the e-platform, along with the corresponding operational decisions, indicating how the e-platform should adapt its strategies based on the supplier’s chosen encroachment strategy.

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  10:55 AM - 11:20 AM

  Freemium Pricing Strategies for On-Demand Delivery Platforms Considering Foresighted Customers

  • Melina Asadi, presenter, HEC Montreal
  • Georges Zaccour, HEC Montreal, GERAD

  This study investigates pricing strategies for freemium platforms with on-demand delivery service, considering customers' foresight. Customers are differentiated by platform usage frequency and their valuation of its service. We derive analytical results and conduct numerical simulations to examine the optimal membership fee and per-usage transaction fee of the platform.

• 
  11:20 AM - 11:45 AM

  Influencing Customers and Product Returns

  • Reza Nazari Khanmiri, presenter, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University
  • Xiao Huang, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University
  • Georges Zaccour, Chair in Game Theory and Management, GERAD and HEC Montréal

  Information tools and influence strategies possess a significant capacity to shape consumer behavior in retail world. However, the impact of these tools on consumer decisions does not carry over to post-purchase return decisions, urging sellers to reevaluate any arbitrary moves in influencing customers. Our model examines the strategic interplay between influencing customers and their decision-making in product returns to pinpoint the optimal level of influence and the circumstances under which it is applicable across diverse return policies, followed by an initiative for a joint design approach. We employ a framework based on Bayesian Persuasion to uncover the nuanced trade-offs between pre-purchase influence and post-purchase options, taking time to evaluate the way consumer welfare is affected. Aligned with these objectives, we find that product returns can strategically act as a substitute for influence which opens up an alternative method for managing consumer perceptions. Our analysis of different refund scenarios suggests that partial refunds could give sellers enough leverage to make exerting additional influence unnecessary. Conversely, other scenarios of return might permit more room for increased influence. In addition to adding a new dimension to the current discourse on e-commerce strategies, these findings provide practical insights for navigating the evolving market.

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  11:45 AM - 12:10 PM

  *The Impact of Subscription and Freemium Models on User Diversity

  • Rim Hariss, presenter, Desautels Faculty of Management
  • Shreyas Sekar,

  Recently, there has been a growing concern that the adopted policies by online platform can exacerbate the biases present in the data and lead to outcomes that favour specific groups of popular users. This can affect the long-term health of the marketplace by endangering users’ trust in the platform and lead to lopsided growth.
  This work tackles the problem of designing data-driven policies for online platforms that lead to diverse/fair outcomes. We focus on one lever used by the platform: pricing/revenue sharing. We adopt a two-pronged approach: 1) Use publicly available data from platforms such as Spotify to quantify how current policies lead to undesirable outcomes that only benefit some users; 2) Design policies for revenue sharing that benefit a broad spectrum of users operating on the platform.
  Our results underscore the importance of considering consumers' heterogeneous preferences when deriving an optimal pricing menu for streaming platforms. These findings should guide a broad spectrum of online platforms in developing pricing and assortment models that cater to diverse user segments. Additionally, our work contributes to the discourse on user diversity by highlighting the complex dynamics of user-platform interactions that are crucial for ensuring platform sustainability.