Monopoly Versioning of Information Goods When Consumers Have Group Tastes
Date
2014-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley
Abstract
Large sunk costs of development, negligible costs of reproduction, and distribution resulting in economies of scale distinguish information goods from physical goods. Versioning is a way firms may take advantage of these properties. However, in a baseline model where consumers differ in their tastes for quality, an information goods monopolist only offers one version, and this differs from what we observe in practice. We explore formulations that add features to the baseline model that result in a monopolist offering multiple versions. We examine versioning where consumers differ in individual tastes for quality, and groups of consumers that share the same group taste are delineated by segments of individual tastes. We find that if groups have mutually exclusive characteristics—a horizontal dimension—that they value relative to the shared characteristics, then versioning is optimal. Consequently, any horizontal differentiation in product line design favors versioning. In addition, when group tastes are hierarchical such that higher taste groups value characteristics that lower taste groups value but not vice versa—a vertical dimension—as long as the valuations of the higher and adjacent lower taste group are sufficiently close, then versioning is also optimal. Our conditions, which also help determine how many versions are optimal, are based on exogenously defined parameters so that it is feasible to check them in practice.
Description
Author Posting: Dr. Barrie Nault. 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Wiley for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in the journal Production and Operations Management, 23, 6, 1067-1081. DOI: 10.1111/poms.12180
Keywords
information goods, pricing strategies, market segmentation, product differentiation, versioning strategies
Citation
Wei, X., and B.R. Nault, "Monopoly Versioning of Information Goods When Consumers Have Group Tastes," Production and Operations Management, 23, 6 (June 2014), 1067–1081.