Can a Manufacturer Get Better off When Providing Product Sharing Services?

The emerging product sharing trend poses challenges for manufacturers. Although the cost of purchasing products is decreased by adopting product sharing, consumers must accept that their demand cannot be responded to instantly and must use unfamiliar shared products. There are unavoidable inconvenie...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Xiaozheng Li, Xiaojian Hu, Ju Qiu, Xinxuan Zhu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2021-01-01
Series:Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/6619264
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Summary:The emerging product sharing trend poses challenges for manufacturers. Although the cost of purchasing products is decreased by adopting product sharing, consumers must accept that their demand cannot be responded to instantly and must use unfamiliar shared products. There are unavoidable inconveniences that are inherent in product sharing that directly affect consumers’ choices and further affect manufacturers’ decisions about providing sharing services. However, few papers have focused on the impact of such factors. In this paper, we aim to study how the unavoidable inconvenience costs and operational costs affect the manufacturer’s decision on whether to provide sharing services. First, low inconvenience cost and operational cost encourage the manufacturer to provide sharing services. High product quality weakens the influence of these two factors, while strengthening the influence of the pooling effect on the manufacturer’s provision decision. Second, the sharing market cannibalizes the sales demand when inconvenience cost is low and product quality is high. Third, the provision of sharing services is a win-win situation for consumers and the manufacturers of low-quality products.
ISSN:1026-0226
1607-887X