Pricing and quality strategies for an on-demand housekeeping platform with customer-intensive services

In this paper, the authors study an on-demand housekeeping platform in which suppliers have heterogeneous opportunity costs, and customers are sensitive to service quality, price, and waiting time. The platform charges fees from customers and divides revenue with service suppliers in a certain proportion. They analyze two types of market coverage, namely full market coverage and partial market coverage. They find that as the potential demand market capacity expands, the platform will choose to lower prices to attract more customers and service suppliers until it reaches the partial market, thereby obtaining higher revenue, and suppliers will provide lower quality services to serve more customers and thus obtain more wages. Moreover, they show that the partial market is more favorable to the platform than the full market. However, for service suppliers, the partial market is not always more favorable. Meanwhile, as customers are more sensitive to the service value, suppliers will tend to lower their service rates to improve service quality, and the platform will tend to set higher service prices. Interestingly, the authors observe that when the sensitivity of service value is relatively small, the sensitivity of service value has even the opposite effect on the platform’s revenue and service suppliers’ payoffs, as well as the equilibrium number of service suppliers in different market scenarios. In addition, different market scenarios also will lead to the opposite effect of the service cost on the optimal equilibrium price, arrival rate, and service rate. However, the increase in the service cost will lead to a decrease in platform revenue and service supplier payoffs and the number of service suppliers in both market scenarios.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2022.102760
• Record URL:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136655452200151X
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/13665545
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Yu, Jianjun
  • Fang, Yanli
  • Zhong, Yuanguang
  • Zhang, Xiong
  • Zhang, Ruijie
• Publication Date: 2022-8

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 102760
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review
  • Volume: 164
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 1366-5545
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13665545

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Cleaning; Demand; Market value; Pricing; Quality of work; Service models; Software
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Economics; Highways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01855687
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 24 2022 3:02PM