Research on pricing strategy of online education products considering consumers' matching degree and price comparison behavior

Purpose The uncertainty of consumers' perceived value makes online education enterprises face great challenge in developing the pricing strategy. So the purpose of this paper is to research the pricing strategies of online education products by considering knowledge consumers' characteristics. Design/methodology/approach Considering consumer matching degree and price comparison, this study establishes the utility functions of consumers in normal sales period and discount selling period. On this basis, the research builds pricing models of the online education enterprise under the strategy of price undertaking and intertemporal pricing strategy. It further discusses the impact of consumer matching degree, consumer price sensitivity and different types of consumers on the product price and profit of online education enterprises, and reveals the optimal pricing strategy of the enterprise. Findings Consumer matching degree and price sensitivity coefficient have positive effects on product price and enterprise profit, but they have different effects on product demand; there are differences in the perceived value of the three types of consumers, and matching consumers are the optimal consumer group; the intertemporal pricing strategy is better than the strategy of price undertaking only when the price sensitivity coefficient is greater than a critical value. Originality/value This study enriches the literature on the pricing model of online education products and owns a practical significance to guide the online enterprise to make marketing strategies to increase profit.