Presale Strategy for a Dual-Channel Retailer Considering Sales Effort

We study the presale strategy and decision-making problems for a retailer selling products. Based on the penetration and skimming pricing strategies, we consider the characteristics of consumer market segmentation and valuation heterogeneity, focus on the implementation conditions and optimal decision results of different pricing strategies before and after the introduction of an online presale channel, and conduct a multidimensional comparative study on the impact of the introduction of the online presale channel. We find that the introduction of an online presale channel can always improve the retailer’s profitability, but its pricing strategy and sales effort should be adjusted to align with the consumer market segmentation. When the proportion of online consumers is high or their preference for the spot channel is high, the retailer should always adopt a penetration pricing strategy. If online consumers also show a high consumption preference for the presale channel, the retailer should reduce its sales effort to save costs after introducing the presale channel; otherwise, the retailer should increase its sales effort to increase demand in the offline spot channel. When the proportion of online consumers is low and their preference for the spot channel is low, the retailer should always adopt a skimming pricing strategy and keep sales effort unchanged. When the proportion of online consumers and their consumption preference for the spot channel are moderate, the retailer should adjust its pricing strategy from penetration to skimming after introducing the online presale channel and appropriately reduce the level of sales effort.