The choice of pricing format: Firms may choose uniform pricing over personalized pricing to induce rivals to soften competition

Abstract

Technological development and better information systems potentially increase firms' abilities to use personalized pricing. Should firms take advantage of such an opportunity, or should they rather charge all consumers the same price (uniform pricing)? It might seem obvious that it is optimal for an individual firm to use personalized pricing; if it does, it can charge each consumer a price equal to her maximal willingness to pay. No other price plan can possibly yield higher profits. However, we show that if a firm is expected to use personalized pricing, then it effectively eliminates a rival's possibility to select values on non-price variables, such as horizontal differentiation, that can soften competition and increase profits for all firms. Once we take this into account, we might no longer expect that personalized pricing is a dominant strategy. Indeed, we show that it may be a dominant strategy for a firm to commit to uniform pricing prior to the rival's choice of non-price variables if it has the ability to do so.