Uber Business Barriers

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In perfect competition, there are many sellers and individual buyers, there is also perfect freedom of entry and exit from the industry, with firms supplying homogenous products that can be perfect substitutes of each other. There is also perfect knowledge and consumers have all information about prices and products. Contestability is the idea that firms have the freedom of entry into an industry and the costs of exit are low and hence such a market is likely to have potential new suppliers which bring competition to the market. For a market to be contestable, there must be an absence of sunk costs (ie. costs that have been committed by a business and cannot be recovered once a firm has entered the industry), access to technology, low consumer…show more content…
For instance, transportation network company Uber has been launched as a mobile application that connects passengers to taxi drivers who are willing and able to pick up them and drive them. This involves removing barriers to entry on two levels. Firstly, the cost of setting up the business is relatively low given its nature as a mobile application. As opposed to, say, taxi hire companies, costs have been greatly reduced in terms of rent and because perhaps less workers are needed. In addition, Uber has also sidestepped barriers to entry because anyone can now become supplier of Uber’s taxi services without having to purchase a license, which helps taxi drivers enter (and leave) the market more…show more content…
The set-up of “supermarket banks” illustrates low barrier of entry because sunk costs have been reduced through not having to hire fresh premises to set up the bank- they are simply set up inside the supermarket. Another example of increased contestability is that of parcel services. Prior to privatisation, Royal Mail was the only postal service provider. However, after privatisation and removal of legal barriers, a lot more parcel delivering firms have entered the market. (Is there a link between removing legal barriers on delivering LETTERS and increased number of firms in delivering PARCELS? not sure if this is an appropriate

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