Analysis Of The Social Welfare And Competition Effects Of The "Two-for-One" On Takeaway Platforms

With the rapid development of the Internet economy,takeaway platforms have shown strong momentum and have formed an oligopoly of competition.With the intensification of competition,the "two-for-one" behavior of takeaway platforms has been repeatedly prohibited,undermining the order of market competition.Based on an economic perspective,this paper analyses the social welfare and competition effects of "second-choice" behaviour based on the technical and economic characteristics of the takeaway industry and the operating model of the platform,and proposes corresponding regulatory strategies.Firstly,a Hotelling model is constructed to examine the social welfare effects of the "two-for-one" behaviour of takeaway platforms.Specifically,based on the special nature of the hidden nature of the "second-choice" behaviour of takeaway platforms,a parameter on the utility of the platform’s traffic control behaviour to users is added to the model to examine the impact of the "second-choice" behaviour of takeaway platforms on the social welfare of the operators within the platform,as well as on the social welfare of the users under the two scenarios of the platform imposing traffic control on the merchants and not imposing traffic control."The study shows that takeaway platforms have an incentive to control the flow of traffic.The study shows that: takeaway platforms have an incentive to implement ’two-for-one’ behaviour,and in the short term,merchants who sign exclusive agreements are partially rewarded by reduced rates from the platform;traffic control acts as an implicit means for platforms to implement ’two-for-one’ behaviour,and platforms often use it to Regardless of whether or not the "two-for-one" practice is implemented,the platform will use traffic control to increase its profits,which provides a reasonable explanation for the takeaway platform’s "bidding ranking" strategy.This provides a reasonable explanation for the "bidding ranking" strategy of takeaway platforms.In short,takeaway platforms can expand their market size,gain monopoly profits and,under certain conditions,undermine consumer surplus and social welfare through the implementation of "two-for-one" practices.Secondly,taking the Meituan case as an example,the R-M-C paradigm,which is commonly used in antitrust reviews,was adopted to assess the competition effects of the "two-for-one" behaviour of takeaway platforms.Specifically,the market in question in the Meituan case was defined as the market for online food and beverage takeaway platform services in China using alternative analysis;the market share of the companies involved and other relevant factors were taken into account to presume that the companies involved possessed a certain degree of market power in the relevant market;the "two-for-one" behaviour of the takeaway platforms was studied from a microeconomic perspective;and "The results show that "second-choice"behaviour,monopolistic high commissions and implicit traffic control have an adverse impact on bilateral users’ rights and market competition.High commissions exacerbate the lemon market effect,causing "bad money to drive out good money" in the restaurant market and even leading to food safety problems,to the detriment of consumers;charging merchants for access to traffic is a form of rent-seeking behaviour that raises economic costs,causes unnecessary losses,discourages consumption and investment demand,and worsens economic efficiency.In conclusion,the Meituan case is a good example of how to deal with the problem of food safety.In conclusion,the "Meituan case" shows that the "two-for-one" behaviour of takeaway platforms does have certain anti-competition effects.Finally,we analyse the real impact and market value of the Meituan "two-for-one" case and propose regulatory strategies for the takeaway platform market: encouraging healthy competition and explicitly prohibiting exclusionary behaviour;optimising the platform commission charging mechanism and limiting monopolistic pricing;improving the rules for the use of platform algorithms and prohibiting implicit traffic control.