Pricing Dynamics in the Online Consumer Electronics Market

• Main Authors: Xing, X. L., Tang, F. F., Yang, Zhenlin
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2004
• Subjects: Economics
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/457; http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb/?did=774491101&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=44274&RQT=309&VName=PQD
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This paper investigates prices of consumer electronics sold on the Web by both online-only retailers (Dotcoms) and the online branches of multi-channel retailers (MCRs). Surprisingly, it finds that Dotcoms charge higher price than MCRs, a conclusion contradictory to the results of most of empirical studies. Also finds that the electronics prices decreased over the period of study in general, dropping about 0.6 percent per week, and the prices of MCRs and Dotcoms went down with time at a similar speed. Further, the prices across MCRs are 35.3 percent more dispersed than the prices across the Dotcoms based on full prices, and 33.1 percent more dispersed based on percentage prices. However, results show that price dispersion moved up with time in general, with no significant difference in the speeds between MCRs and Dotcoms.