讲座题目：Intertemporal Segmentation via Flexible-Duration Group Buying

时间：2018年12月24日上午10:30

地点：主教615会议室

主讲人：Jingchen Liu, Guanghua School ofManagement, Peking University

讲座摘要:

We study a special form of group buying: thegroup buying succeeds if and only if the number of sign-ups reaches a presetthreshold, with no duration constraint. Such type of group buying is oftenadopted for a special edition of the product, offered alongside a constantlyavailable regular product. Customers with heterogeneous valuations arrivesequentially and decide between signing up for the group buying or purchasingthe regular product. To decide on whether to join the group buying, customersneed to anticipate their expected waiting time, which varies depending on thecumulative sign-ups upon their arrival. The firm decides on the prices of thegroup-buying product and regular product, with the product quality levels andgroup-buying size exogenously determined. We show that group buying withflexible duration can result in intertemporal customer segmentation, asdifferent segments might be admitted at different times in the dynamic sign-upprocess. Such intertemporal segmentation has non-trivial implications. First,the loss of efficiency due to waiting for enough sign-ups may decrease in thebatch size required for economic production. Second, as valuation heterogeneityin the market increases, the firm may not always benefit from offering groupbuying along with the regular product. Third, group buying can create a win-win-winsolution for all customers as well as the firm. As extensions, we show thefirm’s profitability can be further improved, by contingently setting prices orconcealing sign-up information in group buying.

主讲人介绍:

Jingchen Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in OperationsManagement at Guanghua School of Management in Peking University. She wasawarded the Principal Scholarship in 2017 and 2018, the highest honor for Ph.D.candidates in Peking University. She won the honorable mention of the EmergingEconomies Doctoral Student Award (EEDSA) from the Production and OperationsManagement Society (POMS). She also received the National Natural ScienceFoundation of China (NSFC) in 2017, as well as the Research Foundation of Deanfrom Guanghua School of Management in 2018. Before joining Peking University,she received her Bachelor degree in Industrial Engineering from the Universityof Science and Technology Beijing. For 2017 to 2018, she was a visiting scholarof the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, sponsored by China Scholarship Council(CSC). She is broadly interested in the interface of Operations Management andother disciplines such as Marketing and Innovation. Her previous researchpapers have been published on journals such as International Journal ofProduction Economics, Omega, and International Journal of IndustrialErgonomics.