Abstract:

In the context of e-commerce coupon，coupons have become an important means for branders to sell products.However， the branders with social responsibility have to take the cost of social responsibility and consumer differences into account when adopting coupon strategy.Based on the signaling theory， a strategic interaction model is constructed between the brander with social responsibility and consumers. Because of the restriction from external market， keeping the platform pricing unchanged， coupon strategy is used to signal and focuse on impacts of the cost difference of the brander， consumer sensitivity and the proportion of sensitive consumers on the brander. Our results suggest that： under complete information， as consumers are more sensitive to coupon than to price， the brander will benefit from it，and the profit of the brander increases in the proportion of sensitive consumers.Under incomplete information，when sensitive consumers show a low sensitivity， with a smaller cost difference of social responsibility， the brander with low social responsibility shows a stronger motivation in imitation， and the brander with social responsibility shows more preference to separating strategy and pooling strategy.Additionally，deffer from the results under complete information， duo to the cost of signaling， more sensitive consumers with sense of social responsibility may be adverse to the brander. While， under pooling strategy， it is shown that the brander with low social responsibility can get higher profit through the free riding.

Key words: social responsibility, coupon, signaling, sensitive consumers