Although scholars engaged in research related to zero-price many years ago, zero-price has evolved into a new concept with the development of the Internet and artificial intelligence. When you enter "free products" in the search engine, and most of the results are related to free information products, free software and so forth. We also could have a good understanding of zero-price (free) products. In this dissertation, we combined the zero-price (free) products with gender and Internet content products which has the practical significance in the application. Shampanier et al. (2007) indicated that when people see a zero price, they consistently choose an option with a low cost-benefit difference. We extend this analysis to account for gender. We propose that females perceive the value of free ( zero-price ) differently than males. Our results show that females are more likely to overestimate zero price options than their male counterparts. By using the literature review method, we figure out some advices for enterprises, such as user lifecycle- based content operation, establishing user interaction feelings, and establishing a dynamic pricing mechanism. The research results are not only helpful in specific sales situations, but also helpful to the operation of enterprises.
The dissertation consists of three short articles. They are "Zero-Price and Consumer Behavior: Systematic Review of Literature", "Do Females Perceive the Value of Free (Zero-Price) Products Differently?", and "From Free to Fee in digital content industry: The case of China". The main research question of the dissertation is "what is Chinese Consumers' Purchasing Responsiveness when facing Free (Zero-Price) Products?" People have always been familiar with the concept of "free products". However, with the development of the Internet, the concept of "free products" is broader. Previous researchers have already done much research on (zero-price) free products, such as the zero-price effect, factors affecting the zero-price effect, and the application of the zero-price in different industries. This dissertation focuses on zero-price effect, and try to figure out the influences of gender factors. In addition, this dissertation also study on Chinese Internet content products based on the background of rapid development of information. The first short article is a literature review article that makes a brief introduction to the zero-price effect. The second short article test whether females perceive the value of free (Zero-Price) differently by quantitative method. The results show that females are more likely to overestimate zero price options than their male counterparts. We also provide some suggestions for future research in this article. The third article is research on specific areas related to Chinese internet content products. We provided some suggestions that could be the practical basis for the process of enterprise content products in this article.