A Game Theoretic Analysis of Social Commerce Ecosystem at the Crossroads

소셜커머스 생태계의 게임 분석

This study first provides a stylized model that captures the essential features of the SC (Social Commerce) business and the competition process. The model focuses on the relationship between key decision issues such as marketing inputs and market value. As more SCs join the industry, they are inevitably faced with fierce competition, which may lead to sharp increase in the total marketing and advertising expenditure. This type of competition may lead the industry away from its optimal development path, and at worst, toward a disruption of the entire industry ecosystem. Such being the case, another goal of this study is to examine the possibility that the ToC (Tragedy of the Commons) may occur in the SC industry. We build game models, each of which assumes homogeneity and heterogeneity of SC providers, respectively, and derive explicit equilibrium solutions from both models. Our basic analysis presents Nash equilibria in both models and shows that SC providers are inevitably faced with fierce competition, which may lead to sharp increase in the total marketing expenses. We also compare the game outcomes with one with a hypothetical social planner who determines the total marketing level that optimizes the entire market value. Then, ToC can be defined to describe the situation where the total marketing efforts exceed the socially optimal level of marketing efforts. In both models, we examine the possibility of the ecosystem disruption and specify the conditions under which ToC may occur. However, the chance of avoiding ToC is higher with heterogeneous players than with homogeneous players. To supplement our analytical results, we develop a simulation model which incorporates a market dynamics based on the gap between actual marketing efforts and socially optimal marketing level. Simulation experiments present some lessons and insights which also confirm out findings from equilibrium analysis. For example, heterogeneity in SC providers alleviates the severity of ToC and makes it faster for survivors to escape from the ToC trap. As a result, the degree of industrial concentration tends to increase, which also explains the 'rich-get-richer' phenomenon observed in some empirical studies on the SC industry. Lastly, based on our analytical and experimental results, we come up with some measures to avoid ToC and overcome the shortcomings intrinsic to the current business model. And further discussions provide strategic implications and policy directions to overcome the possible trap of ToC in this ecosystem, and eventually help the industry to sustainably develop itself toward the next level. To name a few examples of policy measures, regulations on the marketing activities so that the overall marketing expenses cannot go beyond the socially optimal level; institutional guidelines and rules to straightening up the distortions in the way that SC providers view the marketing costs (the current marketing costs are underestimated, thereby encouraging SC providers to increase marketing expenditure); and so on.