禮物購買需求對製造商最適產品線設計之影響
Other Title
Product line design with gift buyers
Journal
臺大管理論叢
Journal Volume
24
Journal Issue
S1
Pages
279-319
Date Issued
2013
Author(s)
Abstract
This paper considers the optimal design of a product line for a manufacturer that faces gift buyers who make purchases for other consumers' consumption, and regular buyers who make purchases for their own consumption. Assuming that a gift buyer has imperfect knowledge about the gift receiver's preference and end users differ in their valuations to quality, we show that in the presence of gift buyers, (i) the manufacturer will not serve the gift buyers with the highest-quality product item; (ii) the manufacturer may offer a full line of gift items, may serve all gift buyers with one single gift item, or may simply induce gift buyers to buy regular products as gifts; (iii) the presence of gift buyers affects the manufacturer's optimal pricing and product-line decisions, which in turn affects the regular buyers' welfare. In an extended model of the paper, we also consider the case where there exist some gift buyers who are very concerned about whether the quality of gifts meets receivers' expectation and are infinitely risk averse. We find that in this case the increase in the population of infinitely risk averse makes it more likely that the firm focuses on the highend regular buyers and the infinitely risk averse gift buyers by offering them the same highend product.
Type
journal article