关键词: 限时免费试用, Hotelling模型, 经验品, 消费者学习

Abstract: At present, offering time-locked free trial has been a common practice of software manufactures to reduce consumers’ uncertainty about product quality and to promote the diffusion of new products. Related research is mostly confined to monopoly situation, but rarely analyzes the common oligopolistic situation in reality. Considering consumer learning heterogeneity after trial, we build a Hotelling model to examine the equilibrium to the trial-offering game between duopoly firms, and possible influencing factors. The results show that: (1)If the expected consumer experience of both firms is very good, both should offer; if poor, neither offers. (2)Otherwise, the equilibrium further depends on consumers’ sensitivity to the horizontal differentiation between firms. If consumers are trivially sensitive to horizontal differentiation, firms must take opposite trial-offering strategies, and moreover, only when the gap between firms in expected consumer experience is very large, the superior offers while the inferior does not; otherwise, they just need to keep contrary in trial-offering strategies. If consumers are very sensitive to horizontal differentiation, firms just need to take the same trial-offering strategy. (3)As the required time for consumers to completely learn the software becomes longer, regions “Just keep the same” and “Neither offers” expand, while regions “Must be contrary” and “Both offer” shrink. This is the first exploration of free trial strategy competition problem, and the results can complement and promote relevant theoretical research, and also can provide scientific guidance for relevant practice.

Key words: time-locked trials, Hotelling model, experience goods, consumer learning