IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormksc/v13y1994i3p248-273.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competitive Positioning in Markets with Nonuniform Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Asim Ansari

    (University of British Columbia)

  • Nicholas Economides

    (New York University)

  • Avijit Ghosh

    (New York University)

Abstract

We investigate the nature of competitive equilibrium for brands competing in a multi-attribute product space when consumer preferences for product attributes follow nonuniform distributions. We establish subgame-perfect equilibria in a two-stage game, where firms choose positions in the first stage and prices in the second stage. Two types of entry scenarios are investigated. In the first, the number of brands is given exogenously, and all of them choose positions simultaneously. In the second scenario, firms enter in sequence, and the early entrants can choose strategies to deter the entry of later entrants. We find the equilibria for two, three, and four brands for consumer preferences that follow a beta distribution. Nonuniform distributions result in equilibrium configurations that are substantially different from those obtained for uniform consumer distributions. In the two brands case, for sufficiently concentrated distributions we find asymmetric position equilibria with one firm at the corner of the market and one firm at an interior position. In the case of three brands, for sufficiently concentrated preferences we find symmetric equilibria that do not yield maximal differentiation. We also establish an equilibrium for the case of four competing brands. In addition we characterize entry deterring positioning strategies and examine how they vary with the distribution of consumer preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Asim Ansari & Nicholas Economides & Avijit Ghosh, 1994. "Competitive Positioning in Markets with Nonuniform Preferences," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 13(3), pages 248-273.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:13:y:1994:i:3:p:248-273
    DOI: 10.1287/mksc.13.3.248
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.13.3.248
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mksc.13.3.248?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
    ---><---

    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:inm:ormksc:v:13:y:1994:i:3:p:248-273. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.