IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v228y2013i2p418-426.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consumer price sensitivity in the retail industry: Latitude of acceptance with heterogeneous demand

Author

Listed:
  • Casado, Esteban
  • Ferrer, Juan-Carlos

Abstract

Estimating the effect of price changes on demand is an essential task for retailers. This study proposes a methodology based on consumer utility for modeling the price thresholds phenomenon that allows for threshold asymmetry, incorporates consumer heterogeneity and uses weekly aggregated brand-level data. Unlike other studies based on consumer utility models, which generate results only for the price elasticity of market share, a methodology for estimating price elasticity of demand is also included. Data on fast-moving goods (detergents, toilet paper, soft drinks, meats, liquid juices and yogurts) supplied by a major retail chain are used to demonstrate the existence of price thresholds and their effects on price elasticity. In every case it was found that within the thresholds or latitude of acceptance, consumers are relatively less sensitive to price variations while beyond them a higher sensitivity was observed. In some cases a product brand was classified as inelastic within the latitude of acceptance and elastic outside of it.

Suggested Citation

  • Casado, Esteban & Ferrer, Juan-Carlos, 2013. "Consumer price sensitivity in the retail industry: Latitude of acceptance with heterogeneous demand," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 228(2), pages 418-426.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:228:y:2013:i:2:p:418-426
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2013.01.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221713000374
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2013.01.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher F Baum & Mark E. Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2003. "Instrumental variables and GMM: Estimation and testing," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 3(1), pages 1-31, March.
    2. Aviv Nevo, 2000. "Mergers with Differentiated Products: The Case of the Ready-to-Eat Cereal Industry," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(3), pages 395-421, Autumn.
    3. Mercer, Alan, 1993. "Developments in implementable retailing research," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 1-8, July.
    4. Gupta, Sunil & Cooper, Lee G, 1992. "The Discounting of Discounts and Promotion Thresholds," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 19(3), pages 401-411, December.
    5. Aviv Nevo, 2000. "A Practitioner's Guide to Estimation of Random‐Coefficients Logit Models of Demand," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(4), pages 513-548, December.
    6. Inseong Song & Pradeep K. Chintagunta, 2006. "Measuring Cross-Category Price Effects with Aggregate Store Data," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(10), pages 1594-1609, October.
    7. Koen Pauwels & Shuba Srinivasan & Philip Hans Franses, 2007. "When Do Price Thresholds Matter in Retail Categories?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(1), pages 83-100, 01-02.
    8. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Kalyanaram, Gurumurthy & Little, John D C, 1994. "An Empirical Analysis of Latitude of Price Acceptance in Consumer Package Goods," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(3), pages 408-418, December.
    10. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    11. Gurumurthy Kalyanaram & Russell S. Winer, 1995. "Empirical Generalizations from Reference Price Research," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(3_supplem), pages 161-169.
    12. Praveen K. Kopalle & Ambar G. Rao & João L. Assunção, 1996. "Asymmetric Reference Price Effects and Dynamic Pricing Policies," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 60-85.
    13. Randolph E. Bucklin & Sunil Gupta, 1999. "Commercial Use of UPC Scanner Data: Industry and Academic Perspectives," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(3), pages 247-273.
    14. Pauler, Gabor & Dick, Alan, 2006. "Maximizing profit of a food retailing chain by targeting and promoting valuable customers using Loyalty Card and Scanner Data," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 174(2), pages 1260-1280, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Radek Froulík & Radek Zdeněk & Jana Lososová, 2023. "The Economy of Retail Chains in the FMCG Sector: The Case of Czechia," Review of Applied Socio-Economic Research, Pro Global Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 20-33, June.
    2. Guhl, Daniel, 2019. "Addressing endogeneity in aggregate logit models with time-varying parameters for optimal retail-pricing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(2), pages 684-698.
    3. Colombo, Luca & Labrecciosa, Paola, 2021. "Dynamic oligopoly pricing with reference-price effects," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 288(3), pages 1006-1016.
    4. Sun, Zhengwei & Hupman, Andrea C. & Abbas, Ali E., 2021. "The value of information for price dependent demand," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 288(2), pages 511-522.
    5. Mou, Shandong & Robb, David J. & DeHoratius, Nicole, 2018. "Retail store operations: Literature review and research directions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 265(2), pages 399-422.
    6. Zheng, Wei & Li, Bo & Song, Dongping, 2022. "The optimal green strategies for competitive ocean carriers under potential regulation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 303(2), pages 840-856.
    7. Jung-Sup Bae & Weisheng Chiu & Sang-Back Nam, 2021. "Sport Fans’ Price Sensitivity Based on Loyalty Levels: A Case of Korean Professional Baseball League," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-13, March.
    8. Timonina-Farkas, Anna & Katsifou, Argyro & Seifert, Ralf W., 2020. "Product assortment and space allocation strategies to attract loyal and non-loyal customers," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 285(3), pages 1058-1076.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. van Oest, Rutger, 2013. "Why are Consumers Less Loss Averse in Internal than External Reference Prices?," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 62-71.
    2. Lillian L. Cheng & Kent B. Monroe, 2013. "An appraisal of behavioral price research (part 1): price as a physical stimulus," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 3(3), pages 103-129, September.
    3. Villas-Boas, Sofia B & Bonnet, Celine, 2016. "Asymmetric Consumer Price Responses and Asymmetric Cost Pass-Through," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt172676f9, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    4. Necati Tereyağoğlu & Peter S. Fader & Senthil Veeraraghavan, 2018. "Multiattribute Loss Aversion and Reference Dependence: Evidence from the Performing Arts Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 421-436, January.
    5. Koen Pauwels & Shuba Srinivasan & Philip Hans Franses, 2007. "When Do Price Thresholds Matter in Retail Categories?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(1), pages 83-100, 01-02.
    6. Amit Mehra & Sajeesh Sajeesh & Sudhir Voleti, 2020. "Impact of Reference Prices on Product Positioning and Profits," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(4), pages 882-892, April.
    7. Kalyanaram, Gurumurthy & Winer, Russell S., 2022. "Behavioral response to price: Data-based insights and future research for retailing," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 46-70.
    8. Prakash, David & Spann, Martin, 2022. "Dynamic pricing and reference price effects," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 300-314.
    9. Xin Chen & Peng Hu & Stephen Shum & Yuhan Zhang, 2016. "Dynamic Stochastic Inventory Management with Reference Price Effects," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 1529-1536, December.
    10. Sheehan, Daniel & Hardesty, David M. & Ziegler, Alexander H. & Chen, Haipeng (Allan), 2019. "Consumer reactions to price discounts across online shopping experiences," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 129-138.
    11. Arnoud V. den Boer & N. Bora Keskin, 2022. "Dynamic Pricing with Demand Learning and Reference Effects," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7112-7130, October.
    12. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    13. Yan, Xiaoming & Zhao, Wenhan & Yu, Yugang, 2022. "Optimal product line design with reference price effects," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(3), pages 1045-1062.
    14. Weifang Lou & David Prentice & Xiangkang Yin, 2008. "The Effects of Product Ageing on Demand: The Case of Digital Cameras," Working Papers 2008.06, School of Economics, La Trobe University.
    15. Yasemin Boztug & Lutz Hildebrandt, 2005. "An empirical test of theories of price valuation using a semiparametric approach, reference prices, and accounting for heterogeneity," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2005-057, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    16. Oliver Budzinski & Isabel Ruhmer, 2010. "Merger Simulation In Competition Policy: A Survey," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 277-319.
    17. Kopalle, Praveen K. & Kannan, P.K. & Boldt, Lin Bao & Arora, Neeraj, 2012. "The impact of household level heterogeneity in reference price effects on optimal retailer pricing policies," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 102-114.
    18. Dmitri Kuksov & Kangkang Wang, 2014. "The Bright Side of Loss Aversion in Dynamic and Competitive Markets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(5), pages 693-711, September.
    19. Wang, Ao, 2021. "A BLP Demand Model of Product-Level Market Shares with Complementarity," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1351, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    20. Wang, Qiang & Zhao, Nenggui & Wu, Jie & Zhu, Qingyuan, 2021. "Optimal pricing and inventory policies with reference price effect and loss-Averse customers," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:228:y:2013:i:2:p:418-426. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.