Limit price

About: Limit price is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4865 publications have been published within this topic receiving 148546 citations.

Price Competition with Consumer Confusion

Abstract: This paper proposes a model in which identical sellers of a homogenous product compete in both prices and price frames (i.e., ways to present price information). We model price framing by assuming that firms’ frame choices affect the comparability of their price offers: consumers may fail to compare prices due to frame differentiation, and due to frame complexity. In the symmetric equilibrium the firms randomize over both price frames and prices, and make positive profits. This result is consistent with the observed coexistence of price and price frame dispersion in the market. We also show that (i) the nature of equilibrium depends on which source of consumer confusion dominates, and (ii) an increase in the number of firms can increase industry profits and harm consumers.

When 2 + 2 Is Not the Same as 1 + 3: Variations in Price Sensitivity Across Components of Partitioned Prices

Abstract: Firms often use a pricing strategy in which the total price of a product and/or service is partitioned into two or more mandatory components. Whereas previous research has compared partitioned with nonpartitioned pricing, this article examines how partitioning the total price differently across the components affects consumer preferences. In four studies, the authors show that consumers' reactions to price partitioning are moderated by the perceived consumption benefit of the components. Specifically, consumers are more sensitive to the price of components that provide low consumption benefits than to the price of components that provide relatively high consumption benefits. Consequently, when evaluating different partitions of the same total price, consumers prefer partitions in which the price of the low-benefit component is lower and the price of the high-benefit component is higher.

Price Adjustments by a Gasoline Retail Chain

Abstract: We use daily data to examine price responses in the Swedish gasoline market to changes in the Rotterdam spot price, exchange rates and taxes. The distribution of price adjustments by a leading retail chain, for the period January 1980 to December 1996, is symmetric with no small adjustments. An error correction model shows that, in the short run, prices gradually move towards the long-run equilibrium in response to cost shocks. There is some evidence that, also in the short run, prices are stickier downwards than upwards. Prices respond more rapidly to exchange rate movements than to the spot market price. Our analysis emphasizes that to fully understand price adjustments it is necessary to examine data sets where the sample frequency at least matches that of price adjustments.

Rational shopping behavior and the option value of variable pricing

Abstract: When a product's price fluctuates at a store, how should rational, cost-minimizing shoppers shop for it? Specifically, how frequently should they visit the store, and how much of the product should they buy when they get there? Would this rational shopping behavior differ across Every Day Low Price (EDLP) and Promotional Pricing (HILO) stores? If shoppers are rational, which retail price format is more profitable, EDLP or HILO? To answer these questions, we develop a normative model that shows how rational customers should shop when the price of the product is random. We derive a closed-form expression for the optimal purchasing policy and show that the optimal quantity to purchase under a given price scenario is linearly decreasing in the difference between the price under that scenario and the average price. This purchase flexibility due to price variability has a direct impact on shopping frequency. Indeed, the benefit of this purchase flexibility can be captured via an "option value" that implicitly reduces the fixed cost associated with each shopping trip. Consequently, rational shoppers should shop more often and buy fewer units per trip when they face higher price variability. Our results suggest that if two stores charge the same average price for a product, rational shoppers incur a lower level of expenditure at the store with a higher price variability. Since stores with different price variabilities coexist in practice, we expect stores with higher price variability to charge a higher average price. Thus, given two stores, a higher relative mean price for a given item should be indicative of higher price variability, and vice versa. These model implications are tested using multicategory scanner panel data from 513 households and pricing data for three stores (two EDLP stores and one HILO store) and 33 product categories over a two-year period. We find strong empirical support for the model implications.

A meta-analysis of national brand and store brand cross-promotional price elasticities

Abstract: This paper investigates whether price discounts by national brands influence private-label sales and vice versa through meta-analysis of 261 cross-price elasticity estimates from sixteen product-chains. On average, price reductions by national brands and private labels have more or less equal influence on each others' sales. However, there is greater variation in the effect of private-label price cuts across national brands. National brands with large market shares decrease private-label sales through price cuts but are seldom affected by private-label discounts. National brands with lower relative price have greater influence on private-label sales and are also affected more by private-label price cuts.