A study of pricing strategy for Mobile Internet service using clickstream data

Abstract

With continued expansion of the Mobile Internet users scale, Mobile Internet played a more important role in customers' daily life. In order to decrease the users' perceived risk and consumption uncertainty, the Mobile Internet services providers take the freemium pricing strategies as the common pricing strategy to attract or maintain their user base. However, although the freemium pricing strategies of Mobile Internet services provider are continually enhanced, the empirical researches on how different freemium pricing strategies may affect users' website stickiness in different market segments, and how those freemium services may affect the Mobile Internet service providers' customer attraction or customer retention performance are still rarely. In order to fill in the academic research gaps: first, we will use the clickstream data to identify the relationship between freemium pricing strategies and the customers' website stickiness in different market segments; and then, we will develop a structured survey to examine whether the freemium pricing strategies may increase the Mobile Internet service providers' customer attraction or customer retention performance ,namely, the customer satisfaction level, customer ownership ,and positive word of mouth. The results will supply more academic support for the Mobile Internet service providers when they want to use freemium pricing strategies to improve the customers' website stickiness, customer attraction or customer retention performance.