在线视频行业的发展产生新的盈利模式(付费会员制)与供应链模式(分账模式),以传统零售制视频平台与买断模式为核心的现有视频定价理论与方法难以指导新实践.为此,本研究探讨付费会员制视频平台在两种不同供应链模式下的定价策略,并分析其供应链模式选择策略.研究发现随着视频质量增加,付费会员制视频平台在买断模式下将依次采用"会员免费"、"会员优惠"与"对称定价"定价策略,而分账模式下仅采用"会员优惠"与"对称定价"定价策略;付费会员制视频平台的供应链模式选择策略主要由视频质量决定,质量较低(高)时,应选择买断(分账)模式.此外,研究亦发现付费会员制视频平台并不从普通用户处直接获取点播收入,且其收入结构由现有会员占比决定;分账模式在一定条件下可激励其引进高质量视频.通过将模型拓展至会员专享视频情形,研究主要结论的稳健性得到验证.本研究可为付费会员制视频平台的运营决策及在线视频行业发展提供有益管理启示.
A new profit model(paid membership)and a new supply chain mode(account sharing mode)have emerged in the recent years because of development of the online video industry.However,the existing online video pricing theories and methods based on the traditional retail video platform and buyout mode cannot guide the new practice.Therefore,this paper studies the pricing strategy for paid membership video platforms under two different supply chain modes,and analyzes their corresponding mode selection strategies.The re-sults show that the paid membership platform video will adopt the"free to members","discount to members"and"symmetrical pricing"successively with the increase of video quality in the buyout mode,whereas only"discount to members"and"symmetrical pricing"will be adopted successively as video quality increases in the account sharing mode.Meanwhile,the selection strategy of the optimal supply chain mode is mainly deter-mined by video quality.When the quality is low(high),the buyout(account sharing)mode should be se-lected.In addition,the paper finds that the paid membership video platform does not directly obtain VOD rev-enue from ordinary users,and its revenue structure is determined by the proportion of existing members.Fur-ther,the sharing mode can encourage the paid membership video platform to purchase high-quality video un-der certain conditions.The results by extending the model to member-only videos prove the robustness of the main conclusions of the paper.The conclusion of the study can provide useful management implications for paid membership video platforms and online video industry.