Consumer-to-consumer E-commerce: creating the optimal pricing strategy for price-sensitive consumers in the C2C market

• Main Author: Chiang, Mig Ming Jie
• Other Authors: Teo Chee Chong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Engineering::Maritime studies
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/172804
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) has seen a rise in popularity over the last few years. The COVID-19 pandemic has played a crucial role, with lock down measures being executed by governments across the world. With more spare time and income, many have turned to selling their unwanted items on C2C platforms. One of the major product categories enjoying the growth of the C2C market is the fashion market, in particular, streetwear. From a seller’s perspective the source of revenue stems from pricing. With the increased number of fashion products sold on C2C platforms, a better understanding of price sensitivity of consumers in the C2C market is warranted. With a better understanding of price sensitivity of consumers and a guide on effective pricing strategies, sellers will be able to set prices which will be profitable for themselves. This serves to encourage more sellers to sell fashion products on the C2C market. This report aims to address the price sensitivity of consumers on the C2C fashion market, a topic which has not been widely studied in existing literature. By exploring the market characteristics of the C2C market and factors which affect price sensitivity of consumers in the C2C fashion market, a set of criteria can be created to measure existing pricing strategies used in the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Market and applied to the C2C market. As such, this report contains two elements of research: a literature review of existing pricing strategies in the B2C market, as well as a qualitative method of data collection, in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with sellers of fashion products on the C2C platforms, to gain valuable insights into the decisions behind pricing in the market. The feasibility and effectiveness of pricing strategies used by firms in the B2C market were measured against a set of criteria derived from literature review on the market characteristics of the C2C market as well as factors influencing price sensitivity of consumers in the C2C market. The optimal pricing strategies were highlighted in the process.