Product Category Pricing and Future Price Attractiveness: 99-Ending Pricing in a Memory-Based Context

Two experiments were used to examine the impact of 99-ending pricing on memory-based comparisons with a multiple product set. Results indicate that when a target is priced above/below a stimulus set, use of 99-ending prices for the highest and lowest prices in the stimulus set lessens target price attractiveness compared to when the highest and lowest prices are 00-ending. Attractiveness of targets priced within the stimulus set was not impacted by the use of 99- versus 00-ending pricing. Overall, participants appear to use an assimilation/contrast approach based upon left-digit processing in determining target price attractiveness.     

Measuring Prices and Price Competition Online: Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com

Despite the interest in measuring price sensitivity of online consumers, most academic work on Internet commerce is hindered by a lack of data on quantity. In this paper we use publicly available data on the sales ranks of about 20,000 books to derive quantity proxies at the two leading online booksellers. Matching this information to prices, we can directly estimate the elasticities of demand facing both merchants as well as create a price index for online books. The results show significant price sensitivity at both merchants but demand at BarnesandNoble.com is much more price-elastic than is demand at Amazon.com. The data also allow us to estimate the magnitude of bias in the CPI due to the rise of Internet sales.     

价格促销对商店整体价格形象的影响:理论与实证研究回顾

商店整体形象是商店在消费者心目中的定位,是一个零售商差异化竞争对手、影响消费者惠顾行为的一个关键因素,而价格形象是构成商店整体形象的要素之一。本文回顾了商家价格促销对商店价格形象影响方面的文献,并在此基础上提出了未来相关研究方向的建议。     

零售商“差价返还”策略对商店整体价格形象的影响

价格是零售商间竞争的一个重要营销要素,而消费者不可能依靠所有具体商品的价格来客观地判断一个商店的整体价格水平,相反他们会依据一些能够感受到的价格线索来形成对整体价格水平的感知。零售商的"差价返还"政策对于商店价格形象具有一定影响,为此在相关的理论框架下须对干扰因素进行实证研究。     

Price developments after a nominal shock: Benford's Law and psychological pricing after the euro introduction

Retail managers use psychological pricing to make the prices of goods appear to be just below a round number. The euro introduction in 2002, with its various exchange rates, distorted existing nominal price patterns while at the same time retaining real prices. We studied consumer prices before and after the introduction of the euro by using Benford's Law as a benchmark for price adjustments. Results indicate the usefulness of this benchmark for detecting irregularities in prices, and a clear trend towards psychological pricing after the nominal shock of the euro introduction. In addition, the tendency towards psychological prices results in different inflation rates in dependence of the price pattern.     

It's Not All Relative: The Effects of Mental and Physical Positioning of Comparative Prices on Absolute versus Relative Discount Assessment

In the context of three experiments, the authors examine the manner in which consumers compare a sale price to an explicit reference value. They find that a comparison of sale price to regular price may be more likely to involve an absolute (dollar amount) assessment, whereas a comparison of sale price to a competitor's price may be more likely to involve a relative (percent) assessment. The authors also find that vertical (i.e., columnar) placement of prices may result in a greater tendency to estimate discounts in relative terms. Conversely, horizontal (i.e., side-by-side) placement may result in a greater tendency to compute absolute numerical difference. The results provide important implications for retail managers in terms of framing and communicating price discounts.     

Price promotion landscape in the US and UK: Depicting retail practice to inform future research agenda

Price promotions dominate the modern grocery retail environment. This paper documents the prevalence and nature of these price promotions (i.e., deal types and discount depths) in the United States and United Kingdom. The analysis comprises of 23 categories across five retail chains. One of the key findings is that multiple-unit promotions – deal types that have been under-researched – account for approximately half of all price promotion activity. The analysis also identifies an increase in price promotion prevalence since the Global Financial Crisis, predominantly driven by national brand promotions. This research carries important implications for the alignment of academic research with common industry practices.     

地价推动下的房价上涨逻辑与影响

中国目前房价过高、上涨过快的问题,从作为二线城市的哈尔滨近年来房价异常的走势也能够得到印证。形成高房价及房价泡沫的根本原因在于地方政府基于"土地财政"利益的幕后推手,并由此形成了地价推动下的房价内生上涨机制。高房价的负面影响很严重,尤其在民生和潜在政治危害等方面。彻底治理高房价及其泡沫的出路是改革现行土地出让金分配方式,由中央财政统筹安排。     

Effects of $9 Price Endings on Retail Sales: Evidence from Field Experiments

Although the use of $9 price endings is widespread amongst US retailers there is little evidence of their effectiveness. In this paper, we present a series of three field-studies in which price endings were experimentally manipulated. The data yield two conclusions. First, use of a $9 price ending increased demand in all three experiments. Second, the increase in demand was stronger for new items than for items that the retailer had sold in previous years. There is also some evidence that $9 price endings are less effective when retailers use Sale cues. Together, these results suggest that $9-endings may be more effective when customers have limited information, which may in turn help to explain why retailers do not use $9 price endings on every item.     

基于流通经济学视角的蔬菜价格波动问题研究

本文拟从流通经济学视角对蔬菜价格波动问题进行理论分析,通过调查对比分析三次不同时点调查中蔬菜批发业务从业人员来源地、经营方式、经营品种的差异,对不同经济发展阶段蔬菜批发业务行业特点进行系统研究。结果表明,近年来大城市蔬菜经营的市场化、专业化程度迅速提高,主要体现在国营性质的批发商已经完全消失,个体经营者占批发商的比例迅速上升;批发商集货及销售产品的地域更加广泛;蔬菜供销价格完全随行就市,经营规模扩大,入行资本投入增加;品种、品质、价格以及需求等市场行情的迅速变化使蔬菜批发业务需要更多的经营技巧。蔬菜价格的迅速波动是交易市场化和专业化的体现,政府有必要花费更多精力考虑如何提供基础设施、质量监督、信息发布等公共产品,为公平竞争创造良好环境。     

The Drivers of E-tailers' Price Levels

One of the most important topics in online pricing is understanding the drivers of online price levels for different types of retailers, in order to better understand competition across retail channels. We developed a conceptual framework and conducted an empirical analysis on price levels in the books category among different e-tailers (pure play and multichannel) in Italy and obtained a dataset comprising 5,400 price quotes during 2002. We ran a correlation analysis that showed that e-tailer graphics, branding and trust, and shipping services are highly correlated to price levels. Moreover, we developed a regression analysis that showed that first impact attributes like graphics and navigability are the most important drivers of online price levels. We identify some areas of future research and offer some managerial insights.     

Acceptance of New Food Products: Reference Prices and Psychological Moderators of Heterogeneous Price Effects

This paper emphasizes a consumer-centered perspective to understand new food product success. It pursues two central objectives by showing that consumers are more likely to interpret new product prices as offering gains or losses depending on their individual purchase histories, and consumer psychographics are demonstrated to affect new product adoption directly, and/or moderate effects of prices and promotions as well as quality signalling product attributes. Several hypotheses are generated based on explanations of underlying psychological mechanisms. For data analysis a cross-classified random effects model is applied to household panel data on yoghurt and sausages that includes four crossed random factors. The findings confirm that inclusion of consumer-specific price information is beneficial for understanding new food products’ adoption behavior. Monetary losses as well as gains negatively affect adoption. Purchase habits also hinder adoption while consumer innovativeness is an important driver. Price consciousness and purchase habits moderate price and promotion effects. While price consciousness reinforces negative effects of prices and positive effects of promotions, habits hinder positive effects of promotions. This implies that introductory promotions are an inappropriate strategy for attracting habitual consumers, and managers should identify appropriate target groups in order to improve the efficiency of introductory promotions.     

The Sensitivity of the General Price Level to Changes in the Price of Crude Oil

There are many direct and indirect effects of changing crude oil prices on the inflation rate, so it is not surprising that there are different views about the resulting effects on the general price level and also on other aspects of the general economy. This study, estimates the direct and indirect effects of oil price changes on the economy-wide rate of inflation, which then has effects on spending and producing decisions. However, in this forum, we do not try to estimate the full indirect effects on the level of economic activity, such as effects on real GDP. JEL Classification E310, E370     

零售业态均衡与创新的要素分析——基于零售业态价格梯度模型的研究

文章提出了一个业态价格梯度模型,该模型将价格梯度与业态竞争分布相联系,通过引入"消费者偏好"概念,较好地刻画了零售业态中服务、价格、成本三者之间关系,在此基础上验证并发展了"技术边界线"理论,提出业态取得竞争优势的关键因素是技术进步、满足消费者偏好以及管理创新带来的成本下降,我国家电零售业态历史发展变化情况也在一定程度上验证了模型的有效性。模型为今后同类研究提供量化分析工具的同时,也为进一步完善业态进化理论提供了新的研究视角。     

石油价格对初级产品价格的影响研究

本文分析考察了石油与14种初级品价格的长期互动关系。通过研究本文认为,石油价格与相关初级农产品价格间存在较强的长期均衡性关系,与初级金属品关系次之。然而并不能完全认定近年来石油价格的上升是引发各类初级品价格上涨的主要原因,其中可能存在更为复杂的作用机制。这种互动影响的传递渠道及方式也为干预初级品价格提供了可能。     

Retailer Categorization: How Store-Format Price Image Influences Expected Prices and Consumer Choices

Prior research indicates that consumers may base their retail decisions (e.g., store choice, purchase quantity) on price image, which has been defined as consumer perceptions “of the aggregate price level of a retailer” (Hamilton and Chernev 2013, p. 2). The present research shows that consumers associate different price images not only with specific retailers, but more broadly with various store formats — such as grocery stores, convenience stores, and specialty stores. Six studies provide evidence that store-format price image exerts influence on consumer price expectations and store choice decisions, and that these retailer categorization effects are distinct from the effects of retailer price image.     

An examination of reference prices at factory outlet stores

The purposes of this research study were to (1) examine the use of reference prices by one segment of retailing – factory outlet stores and (2) explore related public policy considerations. The researchers found that there was a significant difference between advertised reference prices at factory outlet stores and the regular retail price found in department or specialty stores in the same market. Advertised reference prices in outlets were significantly higher – a 6.2 percent difference. For only two of the product categories studied were differences not significant – housewares and children's apparel. Since these comparative reference prices are not in line with the regular prices at traditional stores, there is a potential for deceptive price claims.     

To Price Discriminate or Not: Product Choice and the Selection Bias Problem

In this paper, we investigate a gasoline station's incentive to price-discriminate by selling full-service gasoline as well as self-service gasoline. Unlike previous research, we explicitly model a firm's incentive to price discriminate by choosing to be either single-product or multi-product as a function of market and station characteristics. This allows us to make two contributions to research in the area: First, we highlight the importance of accounting for self-selectivity considerations that can arise in an empirical analysis of price discrimination that is based on market data. Second, we are able to show how the product and pricing choices of firms depend upon the market characteristics.Using cross-sectional survey data on prices, station and market characteristics for 198 gasoline stations in the Greater Saint Louis area, we estimate a switching regression model of station decisions. Specifically, we employ a binary probit framework that models a station's decision to price-discriminate through the choice of the station-type as a function of market and station characteristics. We then estimate conditional linear regressions with self-selectivity corrections for the station's choice of prices. We show that incorrect inferences about the incentive to price discriminate and about the differences in the prices charged between single-product and multi-product stations would result if the endogeneity in the choice of the station-type were ignored in the estimation. The empirical analysis shows that a larger income spread in the market implies a greater likelihood of the gasoline station being multi-product. In addition, we have support for the various within firm and across firm price differentials as predicted by the theory of price discrimination.     

When Shopbots Meet Emails: Implications for Price Competition on the Internet

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - The Internet has dramatically reduced search costs for customers by using such technologies as shopbots. Email based targeting is relatively inexpensive; the...     

蔬菜市场批零价差和价格传递机制分析——以北京市为例

我国蔬菜的市场零售价格不断上升的一个重要原因是蔬菜批零价差过大。因此,研究农产品不同流通环节的价格传递机制,对于提高农产品流通效率具有重要意义。对北京蔬菜市场上小白菜、西红柿和土豆的价格变化进行研究,发现零售价格是影响蔬菜批零价差的主要因素,同时也发现蔬菜市场的零售商对某些产品拥有一定的市场支配力,能够通过一定的途径提高零售价格,扩大价差。