A real bargain: Understanding the impacts of short-term price discounts on physicians’ health service sales on online health platforms

IF 8.2 2区管理学 Q1 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Information & Management Pub Date : 2025-03-27 DOI:10.1016/j.im.2025.104142

Zihao Deng , Zhaohua Deng , Xixi Li , Guorui Fan

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Short-term price discounts of online health services have become a key promotional strategy for increasing user engagement and consumption on online health platforms (OHPs). While these discounts offer patients greater affordability and accessibility, their impacts on physicians’ online health service sales remain unclear. This study takes a physician-centric view to evaluate the effectiveness of discounted online health services and identify discounted pricing features contributing to physicians’ online health service sales. Using quasi-natural experiments involving 540 physicians who first launched or terminated short-term price discounts over three consecutive months in 2022, we confirm that price discounts significantly increase physicians’ online health service sales. Further regression analysis of 38,444 online health service sessions from 1202 physicians reveals that the price differences from the original price and peer physicians’ service prices have inverted U-shaped effects on online health service sales. A post hoc heterogeneity analysis underscores the role of physicians’ online and offline capital in shaping this relationship. These findings provide actionable insights for physicians, managers, and platform designers of OHPs, offering guidance on optimizing pricing strategies to maximize online health service sales.

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来源期刊

Information & Management 工程技术-计算机：信息系统

CiteScore

17.90

自引率

6.10%

发文量

123

审稿时长

1 months

期刊介绍： Information & Management is a publication that caters to researchers in the field of information systems as well as managers, professionals, administrators, and senior executives involved in designing, implementing, and managing Information Systems Applications.