关键词: 价格保护, 策略性消费者, 需求不确定性

Abstract:  The development of the internet has greatly increased the importance of online retail in the economy Unlike traditional brickandmortar stores，online retailers can respond more easily to market demand uncertainties，allowing them to adjust commodity prices swiftly However，when purchasing durable goods，strategic consumers forecast future commodity prices based on market demand fluctuations，enabling them to adjust their purchases accordingly Economist Coase （1972） pointed out that in the durable goods market，consumers strategic waiting behavior can diminish a firms monopoly power，thereby reducing its profit As a result，firms have an incentive to mitigate this adverse effect，with price protection strategies being one of the most commonly used methods
Price protection strategies generally fall into two categories：pricematching protection and historical price protection Pricematching protection relies on competitors prices in the same period，while historical price protection is based on the firms historical prices This paper primarily investigates historical pricing strategies Unlike existing literature，which either neglects market demand uncertainty or considers it only in the first period，this paper focuses on uncertainty in the second period market demand This uncertainty leads to the possibility of future prices being lower than firstperiod price，making historical price protection effective Existing literature on firms responses to strategic consumers mainly focuses on price commitments，deposit increment strategies and displaying product availability to consumers without specifying exact remaining quantities In contrast，this paper examines how a monopoly firm uses historical price protection strategies to address strategic consumers
The paper considers a twoperiod model A monopoly firm producing durable goods sells commodities in two periods：durable goods sold in the first period can be used in the subsequent period，while those sold in the second period can only be used in the current period The firstperiod market demand is deterministic，while the demand for the second period is uncertain When the demand for the second period is low （high），the secondperiod price is lower （higher） than the firstperiod price When the firm adopts a price protection strategy，if the secondperiod price is lower than the firstperiod price，consumers who purchased goods in the first period can receive compensation for the price difference This paper discusses the equilibrium results in scenarios both with and without a price protection strategy and analyzes how the strategy affects prices，quantities，firm profits，consumer surplus and social welfare in both periods
The findings are as follows：（1） Compared to the case without a price protection strategy，the price protection strategy alleviates consumers concerns about future price reductions，attracting more consumers to purchase goods in the first period，thereby increasing firstperiod price and quantity （2） To reduce compensation given to consumers when price protection is applied，the price protection strategy prompts the firm to increase pricing in the second period under lowdemand conditions，resulting in fewer consumers purchasing goods （3） When the firm applies a price protection strategy and all consumers choose to use it，expected profits in the second period decline，but firstperiod profits significantly increase This leads to a rise in overall profits，while consumer surplus and social welfare decrease （4） If only a subset of consumers （sophisticated consumers） opts for the price protection strategy when the firm implements it，numerical analysis suggests that if the probability of low demand in the second period is low，an increase in the proportion of sophisticated consumers consistently boosts the firms profits Conversely，if the probability of low demand is high，the firms profits initially decrease before increasing，while consumer surplus and social welfare may initially increase and then decrease

Key words: price protection strategy, strategic consumers, demand uncertainty