Airfare Yes, Beverage No: The Influencing Factors and Situational Analysis of the Effectiveness of Dynamic Pricing

This study explores why surge pricing is widely accepted in industries such as air travel and hospitality, but often resisted in the daily retail sector. Through the comparative analysis of typical industries such as air travel, online car-hailing, catering and fast food, this paper identifies the key factors affecting the effectiveness of dynamic pricing, and proposes a “Two-dimensional framework”. Type A factors (supply and demand fluctuations and product attributes) determine whether the price can change, and type B factors (fairness perception and communication governance) determine whether the price can be accepted. The interaction of these two factors determines the sustainability and social legitimacy of dynamic pricing. It is found that transparent information communication, predictable rules and compensation mechanism are the core conditions for establishing consumer trust; on the contrary, the opacity of the algorithm or the lack of fair interpretation will weaken its legitimacy. This paper points out that dynamic pricing is not only an algorithm optimization problem, but also a social governance mechanism, which needs the support of transparency, explanation and compensation.