Abstract:

“Pick one of two”is a relatively common competitive strategy in China’s platform economy, whose essence is to restrict the multi-dwelling of third-party merchants through exclusive transactions. The popularity of“pick one of two”in China’s platform economy exceeds that in developed countries in Europe and North America. The reasons include the lack of legislation and law enforcement in the past, the deep integration of online and offline, special business models and market environments. This paper analyzes the influence mechanism of“pick one of two”behavior on competition from two dimensions, competition between platforms and competition between operators within a platform, and then proposes that cross-edge network effects, user transfer costs, the number of small and medium enterprises, and the dual role of platforms are the key factors that affect competitive performance. Based on the above, this paper further proposes countermeasures and suggestions to regulate the“pick one of two”behavior.

Key words: platform economy, pick one of two, anti-monopoly, exclusive transaction