Pricing and Switching Costs Competition in Oligopoly

本研究探討寡占產業中，領導廠商與跟隨廠商如何進行產品訂價與轉換成本投資策略以最大化期望利潤。廠商於每期販售新產品，並決定產品價格與轉換成本投資，顧客選擇一廠商購買產品。當消費者從原廠商轉換至另一廠商時，會產生轉換成本，轉換成本將影響顧客需求量與廠商的訂價決策。過去研究鮮少探討廠商透過投資提升或降低顧客轉換成本，故本研究將轉換成本投資納入產品銷售策略中，討論投資轉換成本是否有助於提升廠商競爭能力，並研究轉換成本對訂價與消費者行為之影響。本研究建立多期動態賽局模型，並考慮技術能力不確定性與廠商市占率，探討雙方的長期訂價與轉換成本投資行為。最後進行參數分析以了解不同情境下廠商策略變化與其管理意涵。This research studies the dynamic competition of price and switching costs in an oligopoly market. In this oligopoly market, there are two decision makers, leader and follower. Firms sell products to the market and customers can purchase products from one firm. Customers who switch from one provider to another incur a one-time nonnegative switching cost. Switching costs affect customers’ demand and firms’ pricing strategy. The main difference from prior research is that we allow firms to control switching costs through investment. We develop a multi-period dynamic game model considering market share and uncertainty of technology level to investigate the strategic interaction between leader and follower in pricing and switching costs investment. The research provides useful insights in product competition through numerical analysis