Publication

Optimal Retail in a Sharing Economy

Thomas Alois Weber
2015
Report or working paper
Abstract

The emerging sharing economy is fueled by products that some consumers buy new. This paper introduces an overlapping-generations model to analyze consumers’ consumption choices and the equilibrium in the sharing market. We derive a retailer’s optimal pricing strategy and determine the payoff effects of sharing. The presence of a sharing market increases the price of new products, and therefore a retailer may or may not benefit from the existence of a sharing market, depending on how much more inelastic the demand of the remaining buyers becomes. The retailer’s benefits from sharing are largest for high-cost products and in a setting where consumers are relatively patient so that they care about their future consumption options.

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Ontological neighbourhood
Related concepts (35)
Price discrimination
Price discrimination is a microeconomic pricing strategy where identical or largely similar goods or services are sold at different prices by the same provider in different market segments. Price discrimination is distinguished from product differentiation by the more substantial difference in production cost for the differently priced products involved in the latter strategy. Price differentiation essentially relies on the variation in the customers' willingness to pay and in the elasticity of their demand.
Sustainable consumption
Sustainable consumption (sometimes abbreviated to "SC") is the use of products and services in ways that minimizes impacts on the environment. Sustainable consumption is done in a way that needs are met for present humans but also for future generations. Sustainable consumption is often paralleled with sustainable production; consumption refers to use and disposal (or recycling) not just by individuals and households, but also by governments, businesses, and other organizations.
Retail
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells in smaller quantities to consumers for a profit. Retailers are the final link in the supply chain from producers to consumers. Retail markets and shops have a very ancient history, dating back to antiquity. Some of the earliest retailers were itinerant peddlers.
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