Speaker: Taner Bilgi\u00e7 (Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i University)<\/p>\n
Title: The Impact of Competitive Intelligence Services on Online Marketplaces<\/p>\n
Date: 27 March 2026, Friday
\nTime: 13:30-14:30
\nPlace: EA409<\/p>\n
Abstract: Recent innovations have driven a steady increase in online marketplace transactions. To remain competitive, numerous marketplace platforms and independent data providers offer Competitive Intelligence Services (CIS), enabling sellers to explore not only their own market potential but also that of their competitors. We consider two related research questions: (i) How does offering CIS to all sellers affect the payoffs of the platform participants and consumer welfare? (ii) What is the impact of offering CIS exclusively to one seller on the pricing decisions and payoffs of the platform, sellers, and consumers?<\/p>\n
We employ a game-theoretical approach to competitive learning to analyze the impact of CIS on
\nparticipants with varying market shares in an online marketplace via a stylized two-player, two-period dynamic model. In the presence of noisy demand signals, the online platform benefits from offering CIS free of charge to both sellers since high demand noise makes demand exploration difficult for each seller in the first period. Consequently, price competition under poor knowledge of the price-demand relationship in the second period leads to a lower payoff for
\neach seller as well as the platform. However, as demand uncertainty decreases, the platform prefers inducing CIS exclusively for the seller with the larger market share. This scenario leads to signal-jamming behavior between the sellers, which results in a win-win-win situation for
\nboth sellers and the platform provider. We consider robustness checks, various model extensions and discuss the implications for the design and regulation of competitive intelligence services in online marketplaces.<\/p>\n
Joint work with: Mehmet G\u00fcm\u00fc\u015f (McGill), Arcan Nalca (Queens), Mohammad Nikoofal (Toronto Metropolitan), Sara Jaberi (McGill)<\/p>\n
Bio: Taner Bilgi\u00e7 received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Middle East Technical University, and his Ph.D degree from University of Toronto in 1987, 1990, and 1995 all in Industrial Engineering. He joined Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i University in 1997 where he is currently a professor at the Department of Industrial Engineering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Speaker: Taner Bilgi\u00e7 (Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i University) Title: The Impact of Competitive Intelligence Services on Online Marketplaces Date: 27 March 2026, Friday Time: 13:30-14:30 Place: EA409 Abstract: Recent innovations have driven a steady increase in online marketplace transactions. To remain competitive, numerous marketplace platforms and independent data providers offer Competitive Intelligence Services [\u2026] <\/p>\n