Abstract:

In the face of increasingly fierce competition in the manufacturing industry and the rapid growth of the ‘service economy’， an urgent challenge in modern product development has arisen： the personalized needs of customers throughout the product life cycle need to be addressed. Critical issues include the design of products and the provision of excellent value-added services.In this paper， factors such as product quality， customer perception of the product， service level， and waiting time for the experience service are considered in the context of a product line with experiential services. The optimal pricing strategy of the product line is studied based on the MNL model under three different strategies， including not providing experience service， providing free experience service， and providing paid experience service. The optimal market share， pricing， and maximum profit are then obtained.First of all， when an experience service strategy is not provided by an enterprise， the influence of some factors， such as product quality and customer’s perception of the product on customer’s choice behavior， is taken into consideration. Under reasonable assumptions， it is demonstrated that the profit function is concave with respect to market share， allowing for the derivation of optimal market share， optimal product price， and maximum profit. It is also observed that considerations for pricing decisions should include product quality， customer’s product perception， product cost， and sensitivity coefficients for product price， product quality， and product perception.Secondly， when a free experience service strategy is provided by the enterprise， the optimal market share， optimal product price， and maximum profit under the enterprise profit maximization problem are obtained by considering the influence of various factors on customer’s choice behavior and demonstrating that the profit function is concave with respect to market share through reasonable assumptions. It is also noted that in making pricing decisions， considerations should encompass not only product quality， customer’s product perception， product cost， and sensitivity coefficients for product price， product quality， and product perception but also service level， customer waiting time， product service sensitivity coefficient， and sensitivity coefficient of customer waiting time.Thirdly， when a paid experience service strategy is offered by an enterprise， the profit function remains concave with respect to market share under reasonable assumptions， and the optimal market share， optimal product price， and maximum profit can be directly derived. It is also observed that in making pricing decisions， considerations need to be given to factors such as the cost of the service， the price sensitivity coefficient of the product service， the ratio of the service price to the product price， and the proportion of people who experience the paid service and purchase the product compared to those who purchase the service， in addition to the influence of each factor when a free service strategy is offered.Finally， the influence mechanism of different parameters on the optimal decision of the enterprise is investigated through numerical experiments. It is found that： （1） Regardless of the service strategy chosen by the enterprise， the optimal market share， product price， and profit increase with an increase in product quality； （2） When experience service is provided by an enterprise， the market share， product price， and profit increase with the increase of experience service rate and service sensitivity coefficient； however， with the increase of enterprise service level， the market share and profit initially increase and then decrease， and the service price increases； （3） On the premise that customers’product perception sensitivity coefficients and service sensitivity coefficients actually exist， they are crucial to an enterprise’s product line pricing decisions， and if the setting of these parameters is ignored， the enterprise will suffer certain losses. Considering product perception sensitivity coefficient and service sensitivity coefficient is necessary when studying enterprises’strategies of not providing experience services， providing free experience services， and providing paid experience services， respectively.At the same time， when developing product lines with a service nature， consideration is given in this study to how some factors， such as experience services， customers’service perceptions， and customers’perceptions of products， impact customers’choice behavior， and ultimately， how the pricing of product lines and the strategy choice of services are affected. Meanwhile， certain reference bases and management suggestions for product line pricing decisions and service strategy choices of enterprises are provided by this paper.

Key words: multinomial logit model, product line pricing, experience service, waiting time, product perception