Product-Type Moderating Effects on Short-Term Demand for Reduced Price Convenience Goods

Abstract

A field experiment within a supermarket chain found that demand sensitivity to price reductions varied sharply between product categories according to whether the product was a stock-up good, increased consumption good or a non-consumption increase good. Following a price reduction, stock-up goods and increased consumption goods were both elastic while non-stock up goods showed much less sales change. While stock-up goods then showed later lagged decreases in sales as consumers extend their savings, increased consumption goods returned to previous sales levels. The results imply simple but useful pricing strategies for grocery retailers.     

Analyzing price and product strategies with a comprehensive system dynamics model—A case study from the capital goods industry

Price reductions and/or product enhancements are widely seen as appropriate ways to increase market share. However, the key findings of this analysis demonstrate the opposite: decreases in price combined with product enhancements can lead to substantial loss in sales revenue and, ultimately, profit. The discussion draws on findings from a comprehensive system dynamics model, which has been developed in a major company in the capital goods industry. The purpose of this research is to analyze the price and product strategies in the capital goods industry. In the case company, testing intuitive beliefs with the help of a formal system dynamics model proved to be beneficial in the strategic decision-making process. The model had a significant impact on the case company, especially when challenging basic assumptions about mechanisms of markets and competition.     

Substitution or Promotion? The Impact of Price Discounts on Cross-Channel Sales of Digital Movies

Technology is transforming the marketing function in many ways, and this transformation is particularly apparent for information goods such as movies where digital technologies provide marketers with new distribution channels, which in turn create new opportunities for cross-channel effects. However, these digital channels also provide researchers with new opportunities to measure micro-level customer behavior to understand the impact of cross-channel effects in real-world settings.In this paper, we study cross-channel effects between movies sold in digital purchase (commonly known as Electronic Sell Through or EST) and digital rental (commonly known as Video-On-Demand or VOD) markets. We do this using a unique sales dataset from a major digital movie retailer provided by a major movie studio. Our analysis takes advantage of a 14-week field experiment that allows us to measure the impact of price discounts on own- and cross-channel sales. We use this experiment to estimate own and cross price elasticities, whether price discounts cannibalize future sales, and most importantly whether price discounts in one channel affect sales for the same product in a presumably competing channel.Our analysis indicates that digital movie consumers are highly sensitive to price promotions. However, we also find that, contrary to expectations, price promotions in a digital sales channel for a movie do not seem to cannibalize digital rentals. Indeed, our results suggest that, if anything, price promotions for digital movie sales can increase digital rentals. We explore a variety of explanations for this counterintuitive result, including the possibility that the ease of information transmission online through third-party websites, blogs, and online discussion areas may create information spillovers such that price discounts in one channel may increase product awareness in other competing sales channels. From a managerial perspective, our results suggest that cross-channel cannibalization can be reduced or even reversed in the presence of information spillovers, and that there are many new opportunities for marketers to directly measure these cross-channel effects using experimental data from online platforms.     

Price promotions and “freemium” app monetization

The “freemium” model for digital goods involves selling a base version of the product for free, and making premium product features available to users only on payment. The success of the model is predicated on the ability to profitably convert free users to paying ones. Price promotions (or “sales”) are often used in freemium to induce this conversion. However, the causal effect of exposing consumers to such inter-temporal price variation is unclear. While sales can generate beneficial short-run conversion, they may be harmful in the long-run if consumers inter-temporally substitute purchases to periods with low prices, or use them as signals of low product quality. These long-run concerns may be accentuated in freemium apps, where the base version is sold for free, so that sales form extreme price cuts on the overall product combination. We work with the seller of a free-to-play video game to randomize entering cohorts of users into treatment and control conditions in which promotions for in-game purchases are turned on or off. We observe complete user behavior for half a year, including purchases and consumption of in-game goods, which, in contrast to much of the extant literature, enables us to assess possible substitution over time in consumption directly. We find that conversion and revenue improve in the treatment group; and detect no evidence of harmful inter-temporal substitution or negative inferences about quality from exposure to price variation, suggesting that promotions are profitable. We conjecture that the zero price of the base product that makes its consumption virtually costless, combined with the complementarity between the base product and premium features can help explain this. To the extent that this holds across freemium contexts, the positive effects of promotions documented here may hold more generally.

     

基于门限分位数回归的网上商品销量影响因素探析

网上商品销售与线下商品销售存在较大不同,为探索其消费模式,需要研究各影响因素对网上商品销量的作用机制。文章基于心理抗拒、贝勃定律、卢因人类行为理论等,对网络消费行为进行系统分析;综合运用分位数回归和门限回归方法,建立了门限分位数回归模型,揭示商品价格、商家信誉评分、商家信誉等级、保障标记数量、商品收藏人气、口碑数量和口碑分数等对销量的非线性异质影响。以受众广泛的iPad air2网上销售为研究对象,实证结果表明：提高商家的信誉等级、增加口碑数量能使高销量商家的销量更高,而保障标记数量的增加对热销有阻碍作用;在非热门商品转向热销品的过程中,增加收藏人气、增加口碑数量和一定价格范围内的提价对低销量商家的销量有促进作用。     

The different faces of coupon elasticity

Coupons account for over two-thirds of all consumer promotional efforts initiated by the manufacturers of consumer goods. In this study, the impact of coupons on brand sales is investigated and how that impact decays over the life of the coupon is demonstrated. Specifically, we present an econometric model that can capture coupon effects in terms of equivalent price reduction, account for coupon effects over time, allow inference of coupon effects when retailers decide to double or triple the coupon value, and provide both self-coupon and cross-coupon elasticities at different levels of aggregation. A widely used sales response model is adapted, and an analytical model is proposed to estimate both the self-coupon and cross-coupon (face value) elasticities of sales at the store level. From the store-level elasticity estimates for a given week, the authors analytically derive the coupon elasticities for the chain level by aggregating across stores, and over the life of the coupon by aggregating over time. The proposed sales response model is estimated with the data obtained from three markets for various product categories, and the coupon elasticities are computed. The proposed framework allows one to demonstrate the hypothetical equivalence of a shelf-price reduction for a given coupon face value in each week. Also, the effect of doubling the face value of a coupon results in more than a proportionate increase in elasticity. The authors find that both self and cross-coupon elasticities are much smaller in magnitude than the average self and cross-price elasticity measures reported in the literature.     

Understanding the Characteristics of Price Elasticities for Frequently Purchased Packaged Goods

This study examines category and brand level factors of packaged goods to determine which ones are related to brand price elasticities. A new nonparametric method of elasticity calculation is presented that is suited to situations where detailed feature and display information is not available. To obtain results that lead to strong and reliable generalisations, we examine 26 categories and 110 brands using store level weekly scanner data. We also synthesise our results with four previous studies that have looked at determinants of price elasticities. Three factors consistently emerge as important drivers of elasticity. They are, competitive intensity in the category, whether or not the product is storable and the brand market share. A further, less certain, factor is the frequency of promotion activity, with categories and brands having more frequent promotions exhibiting lower sales increases when one or more of the brands price promotes.     

To smile or not to smile: The role of facial expression valence on mundane and luxury products premiumness

A smile is an essential professional requirement for sales assistant and endorser as a means to give a stunning impression and to please customers. However, luxury brands, engrained as consumption symbols to create social distance, tend to act oppositely: they prefer endorsers and sales assistants in a neutral face rather than a smiley face. The purpose of this study is to investigate how and why facial expressions valence impact luxury product price estimation. A pilot study and three studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. We first test whether neutral faces combined with luxury goods can make the customer feel distant. Then we conducted an imagination task to assess whether the interaction between the facial expressions of sales assistants and product type affects product valuations. Further, we adopted an experiment to explore the proposed mechanism, social distance. The results show that commercial models and sales assistants' neutral facial expressions increase perceived social distance, further enhancing the valuations of luxury goods. In contrast, they estimated mundane products higher when they saw a smiley face than a neutral or a negative face. These findings contribute to the literature on the impact of facial expressions in advertising and services for luxury and mundane products. Our findings have potential implications for brands to manage their images and convey their value through employees’ facial expressions according to brand positioning.     

Shopping with the resale value in mind: A study on second‐hand luxury consumers

The market for second‐hand luxury products is growing and the variety of available sales channels has increased; consumers can buy second‐hand luxury goods not only from brick‐and‐mortar stores but also from a myriad of both global and local online channels. Arguably, the increase in available sales channels has changed consumers’ purchasing behaviour as the roles between sellers and buyers are alternating as one can act as a buyer one day and a seller the next. However, prior research on luxury consumption has mainly focused on brand‐new luxury goods, largely neglecting the consumption of previously‐used luxury products and has not accounted for the multi‐channel shopping environment. The purpose of this paper is to understand how consumers mentally approach the purchase of second‐hand luxury products and what kinds of decision‐making styles they use. The empirical interview data of 22 consumers was analysed by the means of shopping style dimensions that account for both consumer characteristics and external shopping conditions. The interviewees were members of a Facebook buy and sell ‐group focused on luxury products and had recently bought a second‐hand luxury product. All the existing dimensions were evident in the data but an additional dimension was also identified: resale value consciousness. The new dimension emphasizes an investment‐led and price‐quality conscious shopping style but was also found to relate to impulse buying and brand consciousness. The emergence of the dimension is argued to be due to the increase in viable online sales channels for second‐hand luxury products.     

From Fatwallet to eBay: An investigation of online deal-forums and sales promotions

Sales promotions are an important part of retail advertising strategy. Traditionally, research on sales promotions has generally assumed that the buyers are end consumers who do not engage in reselling, in large part due to high transaction costs. However, the recent Internet related technologies have dramatically lowered the cost of transferring goods between consumers, leading to relative ease of reselling activity amongst individual consumers. Little is known about the impact of this phenomenon on retailer's sales promotion strategy. In this research we investigate the reselling activity in online auctions for products that active deal seekers can obtain at deeply discounted prices from retailers. We further investigate the role of deal-forums in the resale process. Data is collected from an online deal-forum (http://www.fatwallet.com/) and eBay to test various reselling-related hypotheses. The results show that there is a significant abnormal increase in the number of newly posted auctions of a product after the deal information of this product is posted on deal-forum website. We also find that there is a significant price incentive for individuals to resell. The implications for sales promotion research and practice are discussed.     

Exploring the influence of online reviews and motivating factors on sales: A meta-analytic study and the moderating role of product category

Online reviews, which significantly influence product sales, have been a central research topic in the field of marketing. Meanwhile, some motivating factors related to online retailers have been linked to product sales. While several articles have examined the impact between online reviews and motivating factors on product sales, many of the conclusions drawn are contradictory. From 28 studies focusing on online reviews and sales, this study performs a meta-analysis to analyze the true impacts of six review-related factors (i.e., the number of reviews, star ratings, standard deviation of ratings, helpfulness, review length and sentiment), and two motivating factors (i.e., price discounts and special shipping) on product sales. Meanwhile, this paper also studies how one product-related factor (i.e., product age) and one reviewer-related factor (i.e., reviewer's reputation) influence the relationship between online reviews and product sales. In addition, to study the moderating effect of product category, we divide the selected literature into two subgroups which are search and experience products. The results indicate that only review length and special shipping have no significant impact on product sales, while product category has a valid and specific moderating effect on the relationship between these determinants and sales. The presented conclusions will have important implications for academic research and for future industry practice.     

浅谈企业物流的市场营销分析

物流时代,企业应从市场营销的角度有效分析物流。从表层的产品货物流动,到深层的客户需求、产品、价格、销售渠道、服务水平等,本质上都是企业利润的流动。企业应有机融合物流与营销策略,根据物流服务的特点,结合客户的个性化需求,开发适销对路的产品。优化供应链,控制成本,扩大销售,增强企业竞争力。     

考虑零售商销售努力的双渠道供应链定价策略研究

随着电子商务市场的日益成熟,制造商建设线上直销渠道来适应新的商品销售环境成为趋势。制造商线上直销渠道的建立占领了部分原本属于线下零售渠道的市场份额,对线下零售渠道造成冲击。针对双渠道供应链中的竞争,将零售商销售努力行为考虑在内,通过构建博弈模型分别研究了在集中决策模式和分散决策模式下,制造商与零售商的定价策略。研究发现,在集中决策模式下,线下零售渠道与线上直销渠道之间的价格差异随着两个渠道潜在需求量之间差异的增大而增大,并且两个渠道的最优价格分别与其市场潜在需求成正比。在分散决策模式下,两个渠道的最优价格亦与潜在需求成正比,并且线下零售渠道的最优价格随零售商销售努力程度的增加而增加,线上直销渠道的最优价格随着零售商销售努力程度的增加而减少。     

Optimal promotion planning for a product launch in the presence of word-of-mouth

Marketing managers concern that Word-of-Mouth (WOM) can affect the efficiency of sales promotion policy. Sales promotion might also amplify the strength of WOM which further complicates decision-making. In this study, we deploy an agent-based simulation optimization framework to find an efficient sales promotion plan in the presence of WOM for launching re-purchasable products. In this model, consumers' purchase decisions are influenced by price history, availability and satisfaction of the consumers, and positive/negative WOM. We show that taking WOM on board while determining the promotion plan can significantly increase the net present value. However, amplifying WOM might damage the firm's profit for some product categories.     

基于企业销售经理薪酬制度的产品窜货研究

在企业营销实务中 ,窜货导致价格混乱和渠道受阻 ,从而影响品牌无形资产和企业的正常经营 ,对企业的危害极大。从销售经理的两种薪酬制度设计出发 ,建立简化模型进行定量分析 ,业绩报酬系统与产品市场特性的不匹配使得理性销售经理选择了窜货 ,但这种做法会造成价格体系混乱。     

The effect of default options on choice—Evidence from online product configurators

Many firms use product configurators to enable customers to specify their desired products online. In such systems, defaults are pre-specified for levels of product features by the manufacturer or dealer. For example, when configuring a racing bike online, a default is predefined (e.g., the Shimano Ultegra model) for all required features (e.g., the gearshift levers). Such defaults, which may even adapt to previous choices, ensure that a functional and fully defined product emerges at the end of the configuration process. However, when designing sales systems, companies often fail to realize that these defaults also affect customer decision-making. We demonstrate the effect by a study that makes use of a fully simulated racing bike configurator. We find the following results: Moving the default of one feature (e.g. wheels) from the lowest to the highest level results in an increase in sales. In addition, the feature level defined as the default also acts as a reference point by increasing the sales of levels near to it. In order to maximize sales, the default should be set at the level of a feature that is between the medium and the highest price level. To conclude we discuss how manufacturers and dealers subtly yet powerfully influence the decision-making process with their sales systems.     

Price Elasticity Dynamics over the Product Life Cycle: A Study of Consumer Durables

Extending the work of Parker (1992), which considers only firstpurchases, and Simon (1989), which considers brand-level sales, weempirically provide support for the hypothesis that total categorysales price elasticities first decease in absolute value but thenultimately increase if the product in question faces the decline phaseof the product life cycle (due to competitive substitutes, changes intastes, and so on). As an interesting artifact of the methodology, thearticle also shows how the Bass model can be easily modified to accountfor total category sales (first plus repeat purchases) and that, in thelimit, the Bass model converges to stochastic repeat purchase models(bridging two radically different modeling traditions). If unadjusted,the Bass model applied to sales data is grossly misspecified when thetime series studied exceeds five to ten years for consumer durables.     

A Multiple-discrete/Continuous Model of Price Promotion

Understanding the effect of temporary price reductions, or price promotions, on sales of consumer packaged goods is an area of ongoing interest, both in academia and in practice. Price promotions, however, are becoming an increasingly important method of managing consumer demand for fresh produce items. Modeling the impact of price promotions must take into account the differentiated nature of fresh produce and the fact that consumers tend to purchase multiple items of only a few of the products available to them. Neither a continuous nor a discrete model of demand is appropriate. In this paper, we apply a multiple-discrete/continuous model of fresh produce demand to study the impact of price promotion on retail apple sales. Our findings show that the brand switching/category incidence effect of promotion is closer to 65/35 than the more usual 80/20 rule (80 percent of the effect is brand switching and 20 percent purchase incidence) when the nature of the decision is appropriately taken into consideration.     

Virtual borders

Numerous studies have documented substantial deviations from the law of one price for consumer goods. However, in most cases small transaction costs can explain these violations. In our study, we purposely focus on a market where such frictions are minimal, namely online bookselling in the US and Canada. We exploit the high frequency nature of the data to disentangle nominal rigidities from market segmentation and show that while firms seem to respond to domestic competitive pressure, there is no evidence that they react to fluctuations in the relative price of foreign competition following exchange rate movements. In addition, we cannot identify any significant impact on sales volume stemming from variations in international relative prices. Hence, our results suggest that even in an environment with minimal frictions, international market segmentation is extensive and responsible for violations of the law of one price.