Pricing Challenges In The Multichannel Retailing

Price differs from other marketing mix elements by its complexity and to a certain extent it is neglected in marketing literature. Pricing, setting the right price and managing it in the strategic and tactical sense, has always been challenging. Numerous factors should be taken into account such as companies’ own profit, targeted image, competition, regulations and targeted customers. Technology has made everything more transparent, easier to research and to track, including prices. The development of multichannel environment is primarily affected by the development of technology which enables multichannel approach for both retailers and their customers. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to address the importance of pricing in multichannel environment and resulting challenges. Furthermore, the aim is to determine the state of the multichannel environment at the Croatian market, both on the supply and demand side. Supply side includes analysis of multichannel pricing and selling activities of top 10 grocery retailers through case study method. Demand side relates to data on the consumers’ preferred ways of informing on retail prices through survey questionnaire analysis. Results suggest that both retailers and consumers accept possibilities of multichannel environment relatively slowly.