IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdf/wpaper/2017-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fixed vs. Flexible Pricing in a Competitive Market

Author

Listed:
  • Selcuk, Cemil

    (Cardiff Business School)

  • Gokpinar, Bilal

    (UCL School of Management)

Abstract

We study the selection and dynamics of two popular pricing policies fixed price and flexible pricing in competitive markets. Our paper extends previous work in marketing, e.g. Desai and Purohit (2004) by focusing on decentralized markets with a dynamic and fully competitive framework while also considering possible non-economic aspects of bargaining. We construct and analyze a competitive search model which allows us to endogenize the expected demand depending on pricing rules and posted prices. Our analysis reveals that fixed price and flexible pricing policies generally coexist in the same marketplace, and each policy comes with its own list price and customer demographics. More specifically, if customers dislike haggling, then fixed pricing emerges as the unique equilibrium, but if customers get some additional satisfaction from the bargaining process, then both policies are offered, and the unique equilibrium exhibits full segmentation: Haggler customers avoid fixed-price firms and exclusively shop at flexible firms whereas non-haggler customers do the opposite. We also find that prices increase in customer satisfaction, implying that sellers take advantage of the positive utility enjoyed by hagglers in the form of higher prices. Finally, considering the presence of seasonal cycles in most markets, we analyze a scenario where market demand goes through periodic ups and downs and find that equilibrium prices remain mostly stable despite significant uctuations in demand. This finding suggests a plausible competition-based explanation for the stability of prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Selcuk, Cemil & Gokpinar, Bilal, 2017. "Fixed vs. Flexible Pricing in a Competitive Market," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2017/9, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2017/9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://carbsecon.com/wp/E2017_9.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gérard P. Cachon & Robert Swinney, 2009. "Purchasing, Pricing, and Quick Response in the Presence of Strategic Consumers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(3), pages 497-511, March.
    2. Menzio, Guido & Shi, Shouyong, 2010. "Block recursive equilibria for stochastic models of search on the job," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(4), pages 1453-1494, July.
    3. Nakamura, Emi & Steinsson, Jón, 2011. "Price setting in forward-looking customer markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 220-233.
    4. Wang, Ruqu, 1995. "Bargaining versus posted-price selling," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 1747-1764, December.
    5. Minho Cho & Ming Fan & Yong-Pin Zhou, 2009. "Strategic Consumer Response to Dynamic Pricing of Perishable Products," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Christopher S. Tang & Serguei Netessine (ed.), Consumer-Driven Demand and Operations Management Models, edition 1, chapter 0, pages 435-458, Springer.
    6. Holbrook, Morris B, et al, 1984. "Play as a Consumption Experience: The Roles of Emotions, Performance, and Personality in the Enjoyment of Games," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 11(2), pages 728-739, September.
    7. Eeckhout, Jan & Kircher, Philipp, 2010. "Sorting versus screening: Search frictions and competing mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(4), pages 1354-1385, July.
    8. Muthoo,Abhinay, 1999. "Bargaining Theory with Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521576475.
    9. Bolton, Lisa E & Warlop, Luk & Alba, Joseph W, 2003. "Consumer Perceptions of Price (Un)Fairness," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 29(4), pages 474-491, March.
    10. David Gill & John Thanassoulis, 2016. "Competition in Posted Prices with Stochastic Discounts," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(594), pages 1528-1570, August.
    11. John Riley & Richard Zeckhauser, 1983. "Optimal Selling Strategies: When to Haggle, When to Hold Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(2), pages 267-289.
    12. Teck-Hua Ho & Christopher S. Tang & David R. Bell, 1998. "Rational Shopping Behavior and the Option Value of Variable Pricing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(12-Part-2), pages 145-160, December.
    13. Kenneth Burdett & Shouyong Shi & Randall Wright, 2001. "Pricing and Matching with Frictions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 1060-1085, October.
    14. Babin, Barry J & Darden, William R & Griffin, Mitch, 1994. "Work and/or Fun: Measuring Hedonic and Utilitarian Shopping Value," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 20(4), pages 644-656, March.
    15. Manolis Galenianos & Philipp Kircher, 2012. "On The Game‐Theoretic Foundations Of Competitive Search Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(1), pages 1-21, February.
    16. Liang Guo & Ganesh Iyer, 2013. "Multilateral Bargaining and Downstream Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(3), pages 411-430, May.
    17. Botond Kőszegi & Paul Heidhues, 2008. "Competition and Price Variation When Consumers Are Loss Averse," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1245-1268, September.
    18. Fiona Scott Morton & Jorge Silva-Risso & Florian Zettelmeyer, 2011. "What matters in a price negotiation: Evidence from the U.S. auto retailing industry," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 365-402, December.
    19. Xuanming Su, 2007. "Intertemporal Pricing with Strategic Customer Behavior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(5), pages 726-741, May.
    20. Richard H. Thaler, 2008. "Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 15-25, 01-02.
    21. Chia-Wei Kuo & Hyun-Soo Ahn & Göker Aydın, 2011. "Dynamic Pricing of Limited Inventories When Customers Negotiate," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 882-897, August.
    22. Eric T. Anderson & Duncan I. Simester, 2010. "Price Stickiness and Customer Antagonism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 729-765.
    23. Birger Wernerfelt, 1994. "Selling Formats for Search Goods," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 13(3), pages 298-309.
    24. Eric T. Anderson & Duncan I. Simester, 2008. "—Does Demand Fall When Customers Perceive That Prices Are Unfair? The Case of Premium Pricing for Large Sizes," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(3), pages 492-500, 05-06.
    25. Paul B. Ellickson & Sanjog Misra, 2008. "Supermarket Pricing Strategies," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(5), pages 811-828, 09-10.
    26. Preyas S. Desai & Devavrat Purohit, 2004. "“Let Me Talk to My Manager”: Haggling in a Competitive Environment," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 219-233, August.
    27. Gabriel Bitran & René Caldentey, 2003. "An Overview of Pricing Models for Revenue Management," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 5(3), pages 203-229, August.
    28. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Assignment of Workers to Jobs in an Economy with Coordination Frictions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 996-1025, October.
    29. David Besanko & Wayne L. Winston, 1990. "Optimal Price Skimming by a Monopolist Facing Rational Consumers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(5), pages 555-567, May.
    30. Yossi Aviv & Amit Pazgal, 2008. "Optimal Pricing of Seasonal Products in the Presence of Forward-Looking Consumers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 339-359, December.
    31. Wedad Elmaghraby & P{i}nar Keskinocak, 2003. "Dynamic Pricing in the Presence of Inventory Considerations: Research Overview, Current Practices, and Future Directions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(10), pages 1287-1309, October.
    32. Rajiv Lal & Ram Rao, 1997. "Supermarket Competition: The Case of Every Day Low Pricing," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(1), pages 60-80.
    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. Régis Chenavaz & Corina Paraschiv & Gabriel Turinici, 2021. "Dynamic Pricing of New Products in Competitive Markets: A Mean-Field Game Approach," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 463-490, September.

    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. Cemil Selcuk & Bilal Gokpinar, 2018. "Fixed vs. Flexible Pricing in a Competitive Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(12), pages 5584-5598, December.
    2. Selcuk, Cemil, 2023. "Why Fixed-Price Policy Prevails: The Effect of Trade Frictions and Competition," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2023/18, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    3. Kuo, Chia-Wei & Huang, Kwei-Long, 2012. "Dynamic pricing of limited inventories for multi-generation products," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 217(2), pages 394-403.
    4. Chia-Wei Kuo & Hyun-Soo Ahn & Göker Aydın, 2011. "Dynamic Pricing of Limited Inventories When Customers Negotiate," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 882-897, August.
    5. Vincent Mak & Amnon Rapoport & Eyran J. Gisches & Jiaojie Han, 2014. "Purchasing Scarce Products Under Dynamic Pricing: An Experimental Investigation," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 16(3), pages 425-438, July.
    6. Zeng, Xiaohua & Dasgupta, Srabana & Weinberg, Charles B., 2016. "The competitive implications of a “no-haggle” pricing strategy when others negotiate: Findings from a natural experiment," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 907-923.
    7. Richards, Timothy J. & Liaukonyte, Jura & Streletskaya, Nadia A., 2016. "Personalized pricing and price fairness," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 138-153.
    8. Richards, Timothy & Liaukonyte, Jura & Nadia, Streletskya, 2016. "Personalized Pricing and Price Fairness," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235809, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Adam J. Mersereau & Dan Zhang, 2012. "Markdown Pricing with Unknown Fraction of Strategic Customers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 355-370, July.
    10. Gonca P. Soysal & Lakshman Krishnamurthi, 2012. "Demand Dynamics in the Seasonal Goods Industry: An Empirical Analysis," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 293-316, March.
    11. Mohammed Al-Hitmi & Salman Ahmad & Atif Iqbal & Sanjeevikumar Padmanaban & Imtiaz Ashraf, 2018. "Selective Harmonic Elimination in a Wide Modulation Range Using Modified Newton–Raphson and Pattern Generation Methods for a Multilevel Inverter," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-16, February.
    12. Sandro Shelegia & Joshua Sherman, 2018. "Bargaining at Retail Stores: Evidence from Vienna," Economics Working Papers 1606, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    13. Xuanming Su & Fuqiang Zhang, 2009. "On the Value of Commitment and Availability Guarantees When Selling to Strategic Consumers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 713-726, May.
    14. Özalp Özer & Yanchong Zheng, 2016. "Markdown or Everyday Low Price? The Role of Behavioral Motives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(2), pages 326-346, February.
    15. Ningyuan Chen & Guillermo Gallego, 2019. "Welfare Analysis of Dynamic Pricing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 139-151, January.
    16. Tang, Christopher S., 2010. "A review of marketing-operations interface models: From co-existence to coordination and collaboration," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1), pages 22-40, May.
    17. Mangin, Sephorah, 2017. "A theory of production, matching, and distribution," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 376-409.
    18. Dror Hermel & Benny Mantin, 2018. "Selling to strategic consumers: on the benefits of consumers’ valuation uncertainty and abundant inventory," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(3), pages 146-165, June.
    19. Yuri Levin & Jeff McGill & Mikhail Nediak, 2009. "Dynamic Pricing in the Presence of Strategic Consumers and Oligopolistic Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(1), pages 32-46, January.
    20. Ji Quan & Xiaofeng Wang & Xianjia Wang & De Xia & Jian-Bo Yang, 2022. "Performance optimization of supply chain based on cooperative contract with disappointment-aversion strategic consumers," Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 408-428, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    pricing policy; negotiation; competition; competitive search;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:cdf:wpaper:2017/9. 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: Yongdeng Xu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecscfuk.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.