Empirical Study On Price Level And Price Dispersion In B2C E-commerce Market

Based on the internet technology , it is generally accepted that e-eonomies will lead to friction-free commerce. According to this hypothesis, it can be deduced that the price level and price dispersion will be lower in e-commerce market. Besides, more and more traditional retailers noticed the importance of e-commerce and participate in the B2C e-commerce market. We called the retailers who engaged in both online and offline channels as Multi-Channel Retailers(MCRs), those only have online channels as pure online retailers(Dotcoms). In order to test the hypothesis of friction-free commerce, a simple way is that we collect the price data of MCRs'and Dotcoms', then using statistical methods to compare the price level and price dispersion between the two kinds of retailors. This paper combined theory model and empirical study to test the above deduction. The major contents and conclusions are showed as follows:First, the paper intends the Hotelling model and uses this model to analyze the competition. The analysis conducts the equilibrium price and profits of two retailers. By comparing the price and profits, it can be conduced that consumers'partialness and the cost have a great effect on the pricing and price dispersion between retailers.Second, we collected totally 7440 price data in 16 session for the empirical study , the conclusion show that Dotcoms'price level is lower than MCRs', and Dotcoms'price dispersion level is higher than MCRs'. The price dispersion will continue existing.Third, time effect two kinds of retailers on there pricing strategy. Both of them have obviously"festival-effect".Last, the paper also made a contrast study between high-value goods and low-value goods. The results showed that the high-value goods'decline range is broader than the low-value goods', the high-value goods'price dispersion is higher than the low-value goods'.