We show that loyalty discounts create an externality among buyers even without economies of scale or downstream competition, and whether or not buyers make any commitment. Each buyer who signs a loyalty discount contract softens competition and raises prices for all buyers. We prove that,...

We consider loyalty discounts whereby the seller promises to give buyers who commit to buy from it a lower price than the seller gives to uncommitted buyers. We show that an incumbent seller can use loyalty discounts to soften price competition between itself and a rival, which raises market...

We show that loyalty discounts with buyer commitments create anticompetitive effects beyond those possible with pure exclusive dealing. The loyalty discount adds a seller commitment to maintain a distinction between the loyal and disloyal price. This seller commitment reduces the seller's...