Authors
Shiliang Cui, Zhongbin Wang, Luyi Yang
Publication date
2020/1
Journal
Management Science
Volume
66
Issue
1
Pages
227-242
Publisher
INFORMS
Description
This paper studies an emerging business model of line-sitting in which customers seeking service can hire others (line-sitters) to wait in line on behalf of them. We develop a queueing-game-theoretic model that captures the interaction among customers, the line-sitting firm, and the service provider to examine the impact of line-sitting on the service provider’s revenue and customer welfare. We also contrast line-sitting with the well-known priority purchasing scheme, as both allow customers to pay extra to skip the wait. Our main results are as follows. First, we find that both accommodating line-sitting and selling priority can bring in extra revenue for the service provider, although by different means—selling priority increases revenue mainly by allowing the service provider to practice price discrimination that extracts more customer surplus, whereas line-sitting does so through demand expansion, attracting customers …
Total citations
2019202020212022202320241498123
Scholar articles
S Cui, Z Wang, L Yang - Management Science, 2020