Reducing Buyer Search Costs: Implications for Electronic Marketplaces

文章链接：https://www.jstor.org/stable/2634535
作者：J. Yannis Bakos
时间：Dec 1997
期刊：Management Science
总结：电子市场减少了买方搜索成本造成的效率低下，因此降低了卖方获取垄断利润的能力，增加了市场优化配置生产资源的能力
个人观点：为思考线上线下市场区别提供了一个本质参考：搜索成本

摘要

Information systems can serve as intermediaries between the buyers and the sellers in a market creating an “electronic marketplace” that lowers the buyers’ cost to acquire information about seller prices and product offerings. As a result, electronic marketplaces reduce the inefficiencies caused by buyer search costs, in the process reducing the ability of sellers to extract monopolistic profits while increasing the ability of markets to optimally allocate productive resources. This article models the role of buyer search costs in markets with differentiated product offerings. The impact of reducing these search costs is analyzed in the context of an electronic marketplace, and the allocational efficiencies such a reduction can bring to a differentiated market are formalized. The resulting implications for the incentives of buyers, sellers, and independent intermediaries to invest in electronic marketplaces are explored. Finally, the possibility to separate price information from product attribute information is introduced, and the implications of designing markets promoting competition along each of these dimensions are discussed.

结论

电子市场提供了价格和产品有关的信息，降低了买方的搜索成本。
在商品市场中，搜索成本降低到低于一定阈值可能会破坏垄断均衡，消除卖方利润。
在差异化市场中，搜索成本降低会降低卖方利润。如果搜索成本足够低，买方可以查看所有产品，购买最能满足他们需求的产品，从而实现社会最优分配。这种情况下，卖方利润取决于提供的产品数量。反之如果搜索成本十分高，会导致市场崩溃。

后续

参见这篇文章，有人对其一部分结果产生了质疑。