ISyE Graduate Seminar: Pricing Models for Online Food Ordering Platforms: Commission Rates and Delivery Fees

This Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) Graduate Seminar will feature Professor Xuanming Su from the The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who will discuss pricing models for online food ordering platforms.

About the seminar

Online food ordering platforms connect restaurants with customers and deliver food to their door. In return, the platform charges restaurants a commission rate (fraction of sales) and charges customers a delivery fee. These pricing parameters fluctuate widely in practice. Some restaurants opt to pay a higher commission rate for enhanced exposure on the platform’s website. Furthermore, delivery fees often vary based on distance and locations of the restaurant and the customer. We develop stylized game-theoretic models to highlight best practices for the platform and partner restaurants. Using a dataset from a medium-sized food ordering platform, we conduct empirical analyses of current practice and provide computational estimates of potential improvements. This is joint work with Jaelynn Oh and Chloe Glaeser.

About the speaker

 Xuanming Su is the Murrel J. Ades Professor in Operations, Information, and Decisions Department at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford Graduate School of Business. His main research area is operations management, with a focus on strategic customer behavior in the retail sector.

3:15 p.m. - Refreshments
3:30 p.m. - Graduate Seminar