有一类产品,既有实物载体,也可以有电子载体,且不同形式的载体给消费者带来的效用有所不同。对于这类产品,其电子版在网络上的传播往往被视为盗版;但也有相反的情况:厂商主动将免费的电子版公布到网上,可是实物产品的销售不但没有减少,反而增加。文章研究发现,当高端客户比例和产品符合其需求的顾客比例较高时,免费的电子版不但不应该视为盗版,而且还可以作为一种营销工具,利用口碑传播来扩大潜在的顾客群,从而促进实物产品的销售,最大化企业利润。文章对这一问题建立了规范模型,讨论在各种不同情况下厂商的电子版公布策略与相应的价格策略。
Some tangible products may be also provided with electronic version, and tangible version (t-version) and electronic version (e-version) offer different utility. For such products, online diffusion of e-version is usually viewed as piracy, but the opposite cases are observed too. Some firms actively provide free e-version and encourage its spreading through the internet, but the sales of tangible products increase, not reduce. It points out that, when both the proportion of high-end customers and the proportion of matched customers are high, free e-version should not be regarded as piracy, but a marketing tool to attract more potential customers, promote the sales of tangible products and maximize firms ' profits. The paper develops a normative model of this issue and discusses the strategies of providing e-version and pricing decision-making under various situations.