IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/esprep/253663.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why Brand Manufacturers Should Take Loss Leading Seriously

Author

Listed:
  • Inderst, Roman
  • Obradovits, Martin

Abstract

Manufacturers frequently resist heavy discounting of their products by retailers, especially when they are used as so-called loss leaders. Since low prices should increase demand and manufacturers could simply refuse to fund deep price promotions, such resistance is puzzling at first sight. We explain this phenomenon in a model in which price promotions cause shoppers to potentially reassess the relative importance of quality and price, as they evaluate these attributes relative to a market-wide reference point. With deep discounting, quality can become relatively less important, eroding brand value and the bargaining position of brand manufacturers, hurting their profits and potentially even leading to a delisting of their products. Linking price promotions to increased one-stop shopping and more intense retail competition, our theory also contributes to the explanation of the rise of store brands.

Suggested Citation

  • Inderst, Roman & Obradovits, Martin, 2020. "Why Brand Manufacturers Should Take Loss Leading Seriously," EconStor Preprints 253663, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:esprep:253663
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/253663/1/Discounts_Submission_Nov_2020%20%282%29.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simonson, Itamar, 1989. "Choice Based on Reasons: The Case of Attraction and Compromise Effects," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(2), pages 158-174, September.
    2. Richard H. Thaler, 2008. "Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 15-25, 01-02.
    3. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2013. "Salience and Consumer Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(5), pages 803-843.
    4. Narasimhan, Chakravarthi, 1988. "Competitive Promotional Strategies," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(4), pages 427-449, October.
    5. Bergès-Sennou Fabian & Bontems Philippe & Réquillart Vincent, 2004. "Economics of Private Labels: A Survey of Literature," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 1-25, February.
    6. Roman Inderst & Joao Montez, 2019. "Buyer power and mutual dependency in a model of negotiations," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 50(1), pages 29-56, March.
    7. Roman Inderst & Greg Shaffer, 2019. "Managing Channel Profits When Retailers Have Profitable Outside Options," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 642-659, February.
    8. Azar, Ofer H., 2011. "Do people think about absolute or relative price differences when choosing between substitute goods?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 450-457, June.
    9. Mills, David E, 1995. "Why Retailers Sell Private Labels," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 509-528, Fall.
    10. David R. Bell & James M. Lattin, 2000. "Looking for Loss Aversion in Scanner Panel Data: The Confounding Effect of Price Response Heterogeneity," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(2), pages 185-200, May.
    11. Pradeep K. Chintagunta & André Bonfrer & Inseong Song, 2002. "Investigating the Effects of Store-Brand Introduction on Retailer Demand and Pricing Behavior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(10), pages 1242-1267, October.
    12. Jesse M. Shapiro, 2013. "Fungibility and Consumer Choice: Evidence from Commodity Price Shocks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(4), pages 1449-1498.
    13. Xinxin Li & Bin Gu & Hongju Liu, 2013. "Price Dispersion and Loss-Leader Pricing: Evidence from the Online Book Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(6), pages 1290-1308, June.
    14. Markus Dertwinkel-Kalt & Katrin Köhler & Mirjam R. J. Lange & Tobias Wenzel, 2017. "Demand Shifts Due to Salience Effects: Experimental Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 626-653.
    15. Lal, Rajiv & Matutes, Carmen, 1994. "Retail Pricing and Advertising Strategies," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(3), pages 345-370, July.
    16. Roman Inderst & Martin Obradovits, 2020. "Loss leading with salient thinkers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(1), pages 260-278, March.
    17. Huber, Joel & Payne, John W & Puto, Christopher, 1982. "Adding Asymmetrically Dominated Alternatives: Violations of Regularity and the Similarity Hypothesis," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 9(1), pages 90-98, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Inderst, Roman & Obradovits, Martin, 2021. "Loss Leading as a Threat to Brands," EconStor Preprints 253667, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    2. Inderst, Roman & Obradovits, Martin, 2015. "Too Much Attention on Low Prices? Loss Leading in a Model of Sales with Salient Thinkers," CEPR Discussion Papers 10813, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Roman Inderst & Martin Obradovits, 2023. "Excessive Competition On Headline Prices," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(2), pages 783-808, May.
    4. Inderst, Roman & Obradovits, Martin, 2019. "Competitive Strategies when Consumers are Relative Thinkers: Implications for Pricing, Promotions, and Product Choice," EconStor Preprints 253658, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    5. Nana Adrian, 2019. "Price Discrimination and Salient Thinking," Diskussionsschriften dp1906, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    6. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2013. "Salience and Consumer Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(5), pages 803-843.
    7. Clark, Derek J. & Mathisen, Terje Andreas, 2020. "Salience in a simple transport market," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Carroni, Elias & Mantovani, Andrea & Minniti, Antonio, 2023. "Price signaling with salient-thinking consumers," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 238-253.
    9. Azar, Ofer H., 2014. "Optimal strategy of multi-product retailers with relative thinking and reference prices," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 130-140.
    10. Raj Sethuraman, 2009. "Assessing the External Validity of Analytical Results from National Brand and Store Brand Competition Models," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(4), pages 759-781, 07-08.
    11. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Köster, Mats, 2017. "Salient compromises in the newsvendor game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 301-315.
    12. R. Emre Aytimur, 2023. "Salience and horizontal differentiation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(1), pages 60-86, February.
    13. Arno Apffelstaedt & Lydia Mechtenberg, 2021. "Competition for Context-Sensitive Consumers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 2828-2844, May.
    14. Ayala Arad & Amnon Maltz, 2022. "Turning on Dimensional Prominence in Decision Making: Experiments and a Model," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(8), pages 6075-6099, August.
    15. Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus & Köster, Mats, 2017. "Local thinking and skewness preferences," DICE Discussion Papers 248, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    16. Bocionek, Milena & Anders, Sven M., 2012. "Estimating Price Rigidity in Vertically Differentiated Food Product Categories with Private Labels," Staff Paper Series 139931, University of Alberta, Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology.
    17. Castillo, Geoffrey, 2020. "The attraction effect and its explanations," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 123-147.
    18. Georgios Gerasimou, 2016. "Asymmetric dominance, deferral, and status quo bias in a behavioral model of choice," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 80(2), pages 295-312, February.
    19. Maltz, Amnon & Rachmilevitch, Shiran, 2021. "A model of menu-dependent evaluations and comparison-aversion," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    20. Fabio Galeotti & Maria Montero & Anders Poulsen, 2022. "The Attraction and Compromise Effects in Bargaining: Experimental Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2987-3007, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    loss-leading; product positioning; price competition; price promotion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

    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:zbw:esprep:253663. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.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.