Price strategy of community fresh food e-commerce considering the heterogeneous needs of consumers and fresh quality transparency

Abstract

High online operating costs and low consumer utility still need to be addressed in the sales of community fresh e-commerce. Herein, we develop a new community fresh marketing model composed of retailers for online operating costs and consumers for low consumer utility by dividing community consumers into essential type and expectant type in this study. Then, the profit functions of community fresh retailers are developed in this study according to utility theory. Finally, a revised model of the fresh quality transparency (FQT) factor is conducted and discussed in this study. The results suggest that the profits obtained from essential consumers and expectant consumers by the community fresh e-commerce retailers are higher within a certain range of freshness costs compared to the basic model’s projection; meanwhile, the profits from expectant consumers contribute more than those from essential consumers. However, if the freshness cost exceeds a certain critical value, the abovementioned profits predicted from the new model will be lower. This study enriches the supply chain theory of community fresh food and provides retailers with theoretical guidance on differentiated services and pricing to better match the needs of community consumers.