Analytics services provided by marketplace platforms have become increasingly important for sellers seeking market insights. In this paper, we examine a scenario in which an analytics service plays a vital role in enhancing sellers’ understanding of market size and improving their decision-making. Using a game-theoretic model, we analyze the pricing strategies of the platform and the adoption strategies of sellers for the analytics service. Our study identifies two distinct effects of analytics services: the competition effect and the accuracy effect. Specifically, the competition effect manifests in opposing ways across different market scenarios, with a competition-intensifying effect in low-demand markets and a competition-weakening effect in high-demand markets. Consequently, sellers using an analytics service command lower prices in low-demand markets and higher prices in high-demand markets. More interestingly, our results reveal that offering an analytics service could potentially hurt the total market demand, subsequently impacting the platform’s revenue from the marketplace service and potentially leaving the platform worse off. Additionally, driven by both the accuracy and competition effects, adopting an analytics service may adversely affect seller profitability and consumer surplus without necessarily improving overall welfare. Moreover, the transaction fee for the marketplace service plays a crucial role in the interplay between the analytics and marketplace services. Specifically, in low-demand (high-demand) markets, as the transaction fee increases, platforms should consider reducing (increasing) the subscription fee to encourage more (fewer) sellers to adopt the analytics service, thereby enhancing overall market demand and increasing revenue from the marketplace service. Our findings also suggest that platforms should refrain from offering analytics services in high-demand markets when the transaction fee is relatively high. Furthermore, policymakers (sellers) should be mindful of the potential negative consequences associated with the adoption of analytics services in high-demand (low-demand) markets.

中文翻译：

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市场平台上分析服务的经济学


市场平台提供的分析服务对于寻求市场洞察的卖家来说变得越来越重要。在本文中，我们研究了一个场景，其中分析服务在增强卖家对市场规模的理解和改善他们的决策方面发挥着至关重要的作用。使用博弈论模型，我们分析平台的定价策略以及卖家对分析服务的采用策略。我们的研究确定了分析服务的两种不同效应：竞争效应和准确性效应。具体而言，竞争效应在不同的市场情景中表现得相反，在低需求市场中表现为竞争加剧效应，在高需求市场中表现为竞争弱化效应。因此，使用分析服务的卖家在低需求市场中获得较低的价格，在高需求市场中获得更高的价格。更有趣的是，我们的结果表明，提供分析服务可能会损害整个市场需求，从而影响平台从市场服务中获得的收入，并可能使平台的处境变得更糟。此外，在准确性和竞争效应的推动下，采用分析服务可能会对卖家盈利能力和消费者剩余产生不利影响，而不一定会改善整体福利。此外，市场服务的交易费用在分析和市场服务之间的相互作用中起着至关重要的作用。 具体来说，在低需求（高需求）市场中，随着交易费用的增加，平台应考虑降低（增加）订阅费用，以鼓励更多（更少）卖家采用分析服务，从而提高整体市场需求并增加收入来自市场服务。我们的研究结果还表明，当交易费用相对较高时，平台应避免在高需求市场提供分析服务。此外，政策制定者（卖家）应注意在高需求（低需求）市场中采用分析服务可能带来的潜在负面后果。