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Recently, ride‐sharing platforms have started to recruit not only with‐car drivers but also without‐car drivers. Without‐car drivers can directly rent cars from a ride‐sharing platform that operates its own fleets, which requires the platform to pay operating costs to manage the vehicles (self‐operated drivers) or rent cars from a car‐rental company that cooperates with the platform (rental drivers). This paper builds a stylized model to examine the impact of recruiting without‐car drivers on a platform's driver surplus, consumer surplus, and profit. We assume that a ride‐sharing platform first decides to recruit either with‐car drivers or both with‐ and without‐car drivers. Then, the platform sets a price charged to customers, a wage paid to drivers, and a rental fee charged to self‐operated drivers. Customers decide whether to order on a ride‐sharing platform based on the price and network externality term, while drivers choose to provide services according to the wage, rental fee charged by the platform or car‐rental company, and utilization rate. We find that when the platform recruits with‐car drivers (recruits with‐ and without‐car drivers), supply and demand are matched when the potential number of with‐car drivers is relatively small (large), while supply exceeds demand when the potential number of with‐car drivers is large (small). Moreover, when a ride‐sharing platform changes to recruit with‐ and without‐car drivers, the platform and customers always become better off, while drivers may not. Specifically, when the operating cost is relatively low or high (moderate), the drivers become better (worse) off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a two‐stage dynamic pricing problem for a seller who employs online group purchasing with strategic customers. Customers who arrive in Periods 1 and 2 can decide whether to purchase the product in the current period, delay their purchases to the next period (for those customers in Period 1), or leave the market. The network externality, a typical characteristic of group buying, is captured in our model. That is, more customers who purchase the product would positively or negatively affect the demand. We investigate the impacts of positive/negative externality on the seller's prices, demands, and profits, respectively. By comparing positive and negative externality cases, we find that customers who purchase the product in Period 2 can enjoy a lower price than in Period 1 for negative externality. Interestingly, however, the price in Period 1 might be higher or lower than in Period 2 for positive externality, even if the corresponding demand is lower. Compared to no externality, our result shows that the seller should reduce the price in Period 1 but increase it in Period 2 because this helps increase the total demand and profit in the presence of a positive externality. Nevertheless, when there exists a negative externality, we confirm that the prices in two periods might both decrease for a lower externality, which leads to lower total demand and profit for the seller. Since the seller can decide whether to disclose their reviews or product historical sales to customers, this result can provide practical implications for sellers who adopt a group purchasing strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]