- 學位論文
手續費或抽成？多邊外送平台的最佳定價機制
Transaction Fee or Commission? The Optimal Pricing Scheme of a Multi-Sided Delivery Platform
摘要
線上外送平台是近年來成長最迅速的產業之一。然而，外送平台為人們帶來便利的同時，卻也帶來許多相應的爭議，其中最具爭議的便是過高的抽成。過高的分潤比例經常讓餐廳難以獲利，但隨著外送平台的版圖日漸擴張，若是不加入外送平台，將會失去一定的市場，同樣也讓餐廳不易維持營運。 為了緩解大眾的疑慮，DoorDash於2020年初提出了「免抽成方案」，此方案將不對餐廳抽成，而是對每一筆交易收取一個定額的手續費，其他外送平台如UberEats、Grubhub隨後也相繼提出類似的方案。有鑑於此，本文的主要目標為比較手續費策略與分潤策略對平台的獲利性，並討論各種因素對平台決策的影響。在過去與多邊平台相關的文獻中，參與者之間的外部性經常也是影響決策的關鍵因子，因此本文將顧客與外送員之間的網路外部性納入考量。 本研究中，我們建立了一個賽局理論模型，描繪一個外送平台上，顧客、餐廳與外送員的行為與互動。外送平台可以選擇要與餐廳收取分潤或定額手續費，並決定向消費者收取運費或給予運費補貼，餐廳則可根據平台的決策，決定餐點的價格，最後顧客與外送員決定是否加入市場。 我們的研究主要有三個結論。第一，我們發現對平台而言，收取分潤比例相較於收取手續費更能獲利。其次，我們發現當網路外部性愈強，或是餐點成本越低時，兩種策略的獲利差異會愈大。最後，我們發現若平台在收取手續費的同時也收取會員費，便有可能達到與分潤策略相同的收益。對於平台推出手續費定價模式的行為，我們也提出數可能的解釋。
並列摘要
Online food delivery is one of the most fast-growing industry. However, there are lots of controversies along with the convenience, and one of the most discussed one is the high commission. Such high commission rates often make restaurants earn razor-thin profit. While with the scale of delivery platforms becomes larger, if a restaurant refuses to join any delivery platform, it may also be difficult to survive since the restaurant may lose a great amount of demand. To mitigate the doubt, DoorDash released a “commission-free” program in 2020. Instead of charging a commission, under this program DoorDash charges restaurants a fixed amount of transaction fee in each transaction. After that, other platforms such as UberEats and Grubhub also announced similar programs. Therefore, one of the purposes of this research is to compare the profitability of the new transaction fee pricing scheme to the origin revenue sharing pricing scheme. Besides, we want to investigate how factors affect a platform’s pricing strategy. Since the network effect is often considered in the past literature investigating multi-sided platform, we also include the impact of the network effect in our model. In this research, we construct a game-theoretic model to the address the behaviors of a delivery platform, a restaurant, a group of customers, and a group of deliverers, and the interactions among them. The delivery platform first decides which strategy to apply and determines the freight and subsidy. The restaurant then determines the meal price accordingly. After observing the freight, subsidy, and meal price, customers and deliverers decide whether to join the market. There are three main results of our research. First, the revenue sharing pricing scheme always outperforms the transaction fee pricing scheme. Second, when the positive cross-side network effect between customers and deliverers becomes stronger or the unit cost of preparing meals becomes smaller, the profit gap between the two strategies increases. Third, when the transaction fee pricing scheme includes a membership fee, it may achieve the same profit as the revenue sharing pricing scheme. For the action of offering the transaction fee pricing scheme, we also provide some explanation.