IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v8y2019i4p113-d220066.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pricing Strategies in the Italian Retail Sector: The Case of Pasta

Author

Listed:
  • Luca Cacchiarelli

    (Department of Economics, Engineering, Society and Business Organization (DEIM), University of Tuscia, 01100 Viterbo, Italy)

  • Alessandro Sorrentino

    (Department of Economics, Engineering, Society and Business Organization (DEIM), University of Tuscia, 01100 Viterbo, Italy)

Abstract

In the last years, Italian food retailing has experienced some developments related to rising concentration levels, heterogeneous distribution along the country of the different outlet categories, and an increase of products sold as private brand labels. In the Italian agro-food industry, pasta represents a strategic product, since Italy has the peculiarity of being, at the same time, the main producer and consumer of pasta. A useful way to investigate food retailers’ behavior and strategies is to derive a measure of price rigidity, through a “frequency approach”, which permits computation of both regular prices and price promotions, and the frequency and the magnitude of price increases and decreases. We employ such methodology in order to evaluate retailers’ strategies in the Italian pasta market in terms of price rigidity and price promotions according to brand categories (Italian pasta brands versus private label brands) and regional areas for the period 2011–2013. The results show that retailers’ strategies for national pasta brands, in terms of price rigidity and price promotions, are completely different with respect to private label brands. Among the various national pasta brands, retailers adopt different strategies by, in various regional cases, employing the tool of price promotion rather than intervening with regular price changes.

Suggested Citation

  • Luca Cacchiarelli & Alessandro Sorrentino, 2019. "Pricing Strategies in the Italian Retail Sector: The Case of Pasta," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-13, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:8:y:2019:i:4:p:113-:d:220066
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/4/113/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/4/113/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allender, William J. & Richards, Timothy J., 2012. "Brand Loyalty and Price Promotion Strategies: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 323-342.
    2. Ailawadi, Kusum L. & Beauchamp, J.P. & Donthu, Naveen & Gauri, Dinesh K. & Shankar, Venkatesh, 2009. "Communication and Promotion Decisions in Retailing: A Review and Directions for Future Research," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 42-55.
    3. H. Holly Wang & Na Hao & Qingjie Zhou & Michael E. Wetzstein & Yong Wang, 2019. "Is fresh food shopping sticky to retail channels and online platforms? Evidence and implications in the digital era," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(1), pages 6-19, January.
    4. D. Cornille & J. Langohr, 2011. "The distributive trade sector and its impact on euro area prices," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue iii, pages 35-52, December.
    5. Jagmohan S. Raju & V. Srinivasan & Rajiv Lal, 1990. "The Effects of Brand Loyalty on Competitive Price Promotional Strategies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 276-304, March.
    6. Emmanuel Dhyne & Luis J. Alvarez & Herve Le Bihan & Giovanni Veronese & Daniel Dias & Johannes Hoffmann & Nicole Jonker & Patrick Lunnemann & Fabio Rumler & Jouko Vilmunen, 2006. "Price Changes in the Euro Area and the United States: Some Facts from Individual Consumer Price Data," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 171-192, Spring.
    7. Müller, Georg & Bergen, Mark & Dutta, Shantanu & Levy, Daniel, 2006. "Private Label Price Rigidity during Holiday Periods," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 13(1), pages 57-62.
    8. Venkatesh Shankar & Ruth N. Bolton, 2004. "An Empirical Analysis of Determinants of Retailer Pricing Strategy," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 28-49, May.
    9. Mark Bils & Peter J. Klenow, 2004. "Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 947-985, October.
    10. Daniele Cavicchioli, 2018. "Detecting Market Power Along Food Supply Chains: Evidence and Methodological Insights from the Fluid Milk Sector in Italy," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-22, December.
    11. Ruth N. Bolton & Venkatesh Shankar & Detra Y. Montoya, 2010. "Recent Trends and Emerging Practices in Retailer Pricing," Springer Books, in: Manfred Krafft & Murali K. Mantrala (ed.), Retailing in the 21st Century, pages 301-318, Springer.
    12. Judith A. Chevalier & Anil K. Kashyap & Peter E. Rossi, 2003. "Why Don't Prices Rise During Periods of Peak Demand? Evidence from Scanner Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 15-37, March.
    13. Kelvin Lancaster, 1990. "The Economics of Product Variety: A Survey," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 9(3), pages 189-206.
    14. Deepak Agrawal, 1996. "Effect of Brand Loyalty on Advertising and Trade Promotions: A Game Theoretic Analysis with Empirical Evidence," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 86-108.
    15. B. Verhelst & D. Van Den Poel, 2010. "Price rigidity in Europe and the US: A comparative analysis using scanner data," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 10/684, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    16. Paul R. Messinger & Chakravarthi Narasimhan, 1997. "A Model of Retail Formats Based on Consumers' Economizing on Shopping Time," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(1), pages 1-23.
    17. Bing Jing & Zhong Wen, 2008. "Finitely Loyal Customers, Switchers, and Equilibrium Price Promotion," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(3), pages 683-707, September.
    18. Roland Herrmann & Anke Moeser, 2006. "Do psychological prices contribute to price rigidity? Evidence from German scanner data on food brands," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 51-67.
    19. Aucremanne, Luc & Dhyne, Emmanuel, 2004. "How frequently do prices change? Evidence based on the micro data underlying the Belgian CPI," Working Paper Series 331, European Central Bank.
    20. Veronese, Giovanni & Fabiani, Silvia & Gattulli, Angela & Sabbatini, Roberto, 2005. "Consumer price behaviour in Italy: evidence from micro CPI data," Working Paper Series 449, European Central Bank.
    21. Paul Dobson & Michael Waterson, 1999. "Retailer power: recent developments and policy implications," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 14(28), pages 134-164.
    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. Fabio Boncinelli & Andrea Dominici & Federico Bondioni & Enrico Marone, 2024. "Consumers bahavior towards the country of origin labeling policy: The case of the pasta market in Italy," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 46-69, January.
    2. Stefano Ciliberti & Marcello Stanco & Angelo Frascarelli & Giuseppe Marotta & Gaetano Martino & Concetta Nazzaro, 2022. "Sustainability Strategies and Contractual Arrangements in the Italian Pasta Supply Chain: An Analysis under the Neo Institutional Economics Lens," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-18, July.

    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. Holzer, Patrick Sebastian, 2020. "The effect of time-varying factors on promotional activity in the German milk market," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    2. Emmanuel Dhyne & Jerzy Konieczny & Fabio Rumler & Patrick Sevestre, 2009. "Price rigidity in the euro area - An assessment," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 380, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    3. Bogomolova, Svetlana & Dunn, Steven & Trinh, Giang & Taylor, Jennifer & Volpe, Richard J., 2015. "Price promotion landscape in the US and UK: Depicting retail practice to inform future research agenda," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 1-11.
    4. Alexander L. Wolman, 2007. "The frequency and costs of individual price adjustment," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 531-552.
    5. Klenow, Peter J. & Malin, Benjamin A., 2010. "Microeconomic Evidence on Price-Setting," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 6, pages 231-284, Elsevier.
    6. Haans, A.J. & Gijsbrechts, E., 2011. "One-deal-fits-all? : On category sales promotion effectiveness in smaller versus larger supermarkets," Other publications TiSEM 2c1a69db-bdfa-4988-a84c-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. J. Konieczny, A. Skrzpacz, 2006. "Search, Costly Price Adjustment and the Frequency of Price Changes - Theory and Evidence," Working Papers eg0054, Wilfrid Laurier University, Department of Economics, revised 2006.
    8. Laurent Baudry & Hervé Le Bihan & Patrick Sevestre & Sylvie Tarrieu, 2007. "What do Thirteen Million Price Records have to Say about Consumer Price Rigidity?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 69(2), pages 139-183, April.
    9. Dhyne, Emmanuel & Fuss, Catherine & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Sevestre, Patrick, 2011. "Lumpy Price Adjustments: A Microeconometric Analysis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(4), pages 529-540.
    10. Patrick Lünnemann & Thomas Y. Mathä, 2010. "Consumer price behaviour: evidence from Luxembourg micro data," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(2-3), pages 177-192.
    11. Silvia Fabiani & Angela Gattulli & Roberto Sabbatini & Giovanni Veronese, 2006. "Consumer Price Setting in Italy," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 65(1), pages 31-74, May.
    12. Emmanuel Dhyne & Jerzy Konieczny, 2007. "Temporal Distribution of Price Changes : Staggering in the Large and Synchronization in the Small," Working Paper Research 116, National Bank of Belgium.
    13. D. Cornille & M. Dossche, 2006. "The Patterns and Determinants of Price Setting in the Belgian Industry," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 06/386, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    14. Alvarez González, Luis Julián, 2008. "What Do Micro Price Data Tell Us on the Validity of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve?," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-36.
    15. Bunn, Philip & Ellis, Colin, 2011. "How do individual UK consumer prices behave?," Bank of England working papers 438, Bank of England.
    16. Di Li & Hu Wang, 2022. "Effects of retailers' free shipping promotions on manufacturers' product sales and product review ratings in multichannel retailing," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(6), pages 1912-1925, September.
    17. Baumgartner, Josef & Glatzer, Ernst & Rumler, Fabio & Stiglbauer, Alfred, 2005. "How frequently do consumer prices change in Austria? Evidence from micro CPI data," Working Paper Series 523, European Central Bank.
    18. Berck, Peter & Brown, Jennifer & Perloff, Jeffrey M. & Villas-Boas, Sofia Berto, 2008. "Sales: Tests of theories on causality and timing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1257-1273, November.
    19. Levy, Daniel & Müller, Georg & Chen, Haipeng (Allan) & Bergen, Mark & Dutta, Shantanu, 2010. "Holiday Price Rigidity and Cost of Price Adjustment," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 77(305), pages 172-198.
    20. Philip Vermeulen & Daniel A. Dias & Maarten Dossche & Erwan Gautier & Ignacio Hernando & Roberto Sabbatini & Harald Stahl, 2012. "Price Setting in the Euro Area: Some Stylized Facts from Individual Producer Price Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(8), pages 1631-1650, December.

    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:gam:jscscx:v:8:y:2019:i:4:p:113-:d:220066. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.