Two competitive products diffusion in heterogeneous consumer social networks with repeat purchase

Abstract

This paper studies the dynamics of two competitive products diffusion in heterogeneous consumer social networks with repeat purchase. We demonstrate a threshold for the diffusion rate above which a single product can persistently diffuse in heterogeneous consumer social networks without considering advertising strategy if the other product fails to diffuse, and there exists a unique positive equilibrium state where two competitive products coexist and persistently diffuse in heterogeneous consumer social networks without considering advertising strategy. We also prove that there exists at least one positive equilibrium state where two products coexist and persistently diffuse in heterogeneous consumer social networks if considering advertising strategy. The numerical simulations show that the higher the average degree of heterogeneous consumer social networks, the faster the two competitive products diffuse, and the shorter the time required to reach the stable state.