Faster Delivery? You May Be Paying a Higher Price than Others!

The development of information technology allows firms to access consumer purchase records, enabling them to distinguish between new and old consumers. Firms can then provide these groups with respective product pricing and promised delivery time. This paper develops a two-period dynamic model based on game theory to examine the effects of behavior-based pricing and behavior-based promised delivery time strategies on product price, promised delivery time, firm profits, consumer surplus, and social welfare under conditions where consumers exhibit time-sensitive preferences. We find, first, when firms opt to implement behavior-based pricing and promised delivery time strategies, they should offer lower (higher) prices and longer (shorter) delivery times to new (old) consumers. Second, the implementation of behavior-based pricing and promised delivery time strategies may decrease firm profits while enhancing consumer surplus. Third, when consumers exhibit stronger time-sensitive preferences, behavior-based pricing and promised delivery time strategies can enhance social welfare; conversely, they may have a detrimental impact on social welfare. Finally, we extend the model into three aspects—asymmetric strategy selection, firm logistics service costs, and myopic consumer behavior—to enrich our research and test the robustness of the model. The results of this paper supply managerial implications and theoretical references for firms’ strategic implementation and policy-making by relevant government departments.