In multi-period environments, the presence of strategic consumers induces monopolist retailers to inter-temporally compete with themselves. Targeting consumers with price-discount coupons is a proposed mechanism to overcome this inter-temporal competition. Targeting consumers with coupons can counteract strategic consumer behavior, but this mechanism cannot completely eradicate the negative implications imposed by the presence of such consumers. Additionally, the quality of information available (regarding the consumers’ valuations) may play an important role in the targeting decisions. Specifically, we illustrate how the retailer may absent completely from targeting efforts when the quality of information and the proportion of strategic consumers are sufficiently low. Lastly, we consider the optimal investment in information solicitation, demonstrating the trade-off between a low investment, which result in low quality of targeting capability, and a high investment which improves the effectiveness of the targeting efforts.

在多时期环境中，战略消费者的存在促使垄断零售商与自己进行跨期竞争。针对消费者提供价格折扣优惠券是克服这种跨期竞争的建议机制。以优惠券为目标消费者可以抵消战略性消费者行为，但这种机制并不能完全消除此类消费者的存在带来的负面影响。此外，可用信息的质量（关于消费者的估值）可能在目标决策中发挥重要作用。具体来说，我们说明了当信息质量和战略消费者的比例足够低时，零售商如何完全不进行定位工作。最后，我们考虑信息征集的最佳投资，