IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v302y2022i3p1045-1062.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal product line design with reference price effects

Author

Listed:
  • Yan, Xiaoming
  • Zhao, Wenhan
  • Yu, Yugang

Abstract

A reference price is the price expectation of consumers for a product. When considering whether to buy a product, consumers usually compare its price with the reference price, which leads to psychological gain-loss utility affecting the consumers’ willingness to pay for the product. In this paper, we incorporate a reference price into the product line design problem and investigate the strategic implications of reference price effects for both the firm and consumers. We first study the optimal quality-price bundle design problem of a monopolistic firm and investigate the impact of reference price effects on the optimal quality and price decision when the number of products in the line is given. We show that as the importance of price comparison increases, the optimal range of qualities in the product line narrows. Specifically, the lowest quality in the product line is distorted upward, while the quality gap between adjacent products narrows. In particular, when consumers attach great importance to price comparison, the reference price effects may cause the firm to abandon discrimination among consumers and instead offer just a single product. We also investigate the optimal product variety setting problem considering a fixed setup cost incurred for each product in the choice set. Our numerical studies using synthetic and real-world data demonstrate that the demand model with reference price has better goodness of fit and prediction accuracy. The impact of neglecting reference price in the product line design problem is significant, potentially leading to substantial profit loss. Finally, we extend our work through general discussions of the model and through the dynamic pricing problem incorporating temporal reference price effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Yan, Xiaoming & Zhao, Wenhan & Yu, Yugang, 2022. "Optimal product line design with reference price effects," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(3), pages 1045-1062.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:302:y:2022:i:3:p:1045-1062
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2022.01.032
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221722000704
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2022.01.032?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ruxian Wang, 2018. "When Prospect Theory Meets Consumer Choice Models: Assortment and Pricing Management with Reference Prices," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 20(3), pages 583-600, July.
    2. V. Krishnan & W. Zhu, 2006. "Designing a Family of Development-Intensive Products," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(6), pages 813-825, June.
    3. Quan Zheng & Xiajun Amy Pan & Janice E. Carrillo, 2019. "Probabilistic Selling for Vertically Differentiated Products with Salient Thinkers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(3), pages 442-460, May.
    4. 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.
    5. Mark Bagnoli & Ted Bergstrom, 2006. "Log-concave probability and its applications," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Rosa L. Matzkin & Daniel L. McFadden & James C. Moore & Nicholas C. Yann (ed.), Rationality and Equilibrium, pages 217-241, Springer.
    6. Dahremöller, Carsten & Fels, Markus, 2015. "Product lines, product design, and limited attention," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 437-456.
    7. Jong-Shi Pang & Che-Lin Su & Yu-Ching Lee, 2015. "A Constructive Approach to Estimating Pure Characteristics Demand Models with Pricing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 639-659, June.
    8. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Gregory Dobson & Shlomo Kalish, 1988. "Positioning and Pricing a Product Line," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 7(2), pages 107-125.
    10. Yunchuan Liu & Tony Haitao Cui, 2010. "The Length of Product Line in Distribution Channels," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 474-482, 05-06.
    11. Bechler, Georg & Steinhardt, Claudius & Mackert, Jochen & Klein, Robert, 2021. "Product line optimization in the presence of preferences for compromise alternatives," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 288(3), pages 902-917.
    12. McFadden, Daniel, 1999. "Rationality for Economists?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 73-105, December.
    13. Preyas S. Desai, 2001. "Quality Segmentation in Spatial Markets: When Does Cannibalization Affect Product Line Design?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(3), pages 265-283, August.
    14. Jidong Zhou, 2011. "Reference Dependence and Market Competition," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 1073-1097, December.
    15. Ming Hu & Xi Li & Mengze Shi, 2015. "Product and Pricing Decisions in Crowdfunding," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(3), pages 331-345, May.
    16. Briesch, Richard A, et al, 1997. "A Comparative Analysis of Reference Price Models," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 24(2), pages 202-214, September.
    17. Sen, Amartya, 1993. "Internal Consistency of Choice," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 495-521, May.
    18. Ioana Popescu & Yaozhong Wu, 2007. "Dynamic Pricing Strategies with Reference Effects," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(3), pages 413-429, June.
    19. Praveen K. Kopalle & Ambar G. Rao & João L. Assunção, 1996. "Asymmetric Reference Price Effects and Dynamic Pricing Policies," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 60-85.
    20. K. Sridhar Moorthy & I. P. L. Png, 1992. "Market Segmentation, Cannibalization, and the Timing of Product Introductions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(3), pages 345-359, March.
    21. K. Sridhar Moorthy, 1984. "Market Segmentation, Self-Selection, and Product Line Design," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(4), pages 288-307.
    22. Laurens G. Debo & L. Beril Toktay & Luk N. Van Wassenhove, 2005. "Market Segmentation and Product Technology Selection for Remanufacturable Products," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(8), pages 1193-1205, August.
    23. A. Ye(scedilla)im Orhun, 2009. "Optimal Product Line Design When Consumers Exhibit Choice Set-Dependent Preferences," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(5), pages 868-886, 09-10.
    24. Bruce G. S. Hardie & Eric J. Johnson & Peter S. Fader, 1993. "Modeling Loss Aversion and Reference Dependence Effects on Brand Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(4), pages 378-394.
    25. Mussa, Michael & Rosen, Sherwin, 1978. "Monopoly and product quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-317, August.
    26. Steven Berry & Ariel Pakes, 2007. "The Pure Characteristics Demand Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1193-1225, November.
    27. Kaj Rosling, 2002. "Inventory Cost Rate Functions with Nonlinear Shortage Costs," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 50(6), pages 1007-1017, December.
    28. Eric A. Greenleaf, 1995. "The Impact of Reference Price Effects on the Profitability of Price Promotions," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 82-104.
    29. Yalç{i}n Akçay & Harihara Prasad Natarajan & Susan H. Xu, 2010. "Joint Dynamic Pricing of Multiple Perishable Products Under Consumer Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(8), pages 1345-1361, August.
    30. Xin Chen & Peng Hu & Zhenyu Hu, 2017. "Efficient Algorithms for the Dynamic Pricing Problem with Reference Price Effect," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4389-4406, December.
    31. Kalyanaram, Gurumurthy & Little, John D C, 1994. "An Empirical Analysis of Latitude of Price Acceptance in Consumer Package Goods," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(3), pages 408-418, December.
    32. Baron, Jonathan, 1999. "What's the Problem?: A Commentary on "Rationality for Economists?"," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 109-110, December.
    33. Wilfred Amaldoss & Chuan He, 2018. "Reference-Dependent Utility, Product Variety, and Price Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 4302-4316, September.
    34. Serguei Netessine & Terry A. Taylor, 2007. "Product Line Design and Production Technology," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(1), pages 101-117, 01-02.
    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. Wang, Yusheng & Li, Yongjian & Xu, Shuangshuang, 2024. "Repositioning to sink: The pricing and quality decisions for product line considering the sinking market," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 317(2), pages 578-591.
    2. Feng, Lin & Teng, Jinn-Tsair & Zhou, Fangting, 2023. "Pricing and lot-sizing decisions on buy-now-and-pay-later installments through a product life cycle," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(2), pages 754-763.

    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. Kopalle, Praveen K. & Pauwels, Koen & Akella, Laxminarayana Yashaswy & Gangwar, Manish, 2023. "Dynamic pricing: Definition, implications for managers, and future research directions," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 99(4), pages 580-593.
    2. Ahrens, Steffen & Pirschel, Inske & Snower, Dennis J., 2017. "A theory of price adjustment under loss aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 78-95.
    3. Dmitri Kuksov & Kangkang Wang, 2014. "The Bright Side of Loss Aversion in Dynamic and Competitive Markets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(5), pages 693-711, September.
    4. Ma, Peng & Gong, Yeming & Mirchandani, Prakash, 2020. "Trade-in for remanufactured products: Pricing with double reference effects," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    5. Ruxian Wang, 2018. "When Prospect Theory Meets Consumer Choice Models: Assortment and Pricing Management with Reference Prices," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 20(3), pages 583-600, July.
    6. Arnoud V. den Boer & N. Bora Keskin, 2022. "Dynamic Pricing with Demand Learning and Reference Effects," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7112-7130, October.
    7. Amit Mehra & Sajeesh Sajeesh & Sudhir Voleti, 2020. "Impact of Reference Prices on Product Positioning and Profits," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(4), pages 882-892, April.
    8. Xiao, Tiaojun & Xu, Tiantian, 2014. "Pricing and product line strategy in a supply chain with risk-averse players," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 305-315.
    9. Lacourbe, Paul, 2012. "A model of product line design and introduction sequence with reservation utility," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 220(2), pages 338-348.
    10. Tramontana, Fabio, 2021. "When a boundedly rational monopolist meets consumers with reference dependent preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 30-45.
    11. van Oest, Rutger, 2013. "Why are Consumers Less Loss Averse in Internal than External Reference Prices?," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 62-71.
    12. Xin Chen & Peng Hu & Stephen Shum & Yuhan Zhang, 2016. "Dynamic Stochastic Inventory Management with Reference Price Effects," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 1529-1536, December.
    13. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2014-065 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Necati Tereyağoğlu & Peter S. Fader & Senthil Veeraraghavan, 2018. "Multiattribute Loss Aversion and Reference Dependence: Evidence from the Performing Arts Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 421-436, January.
    15. Terrence August & Duy Dao & Kihoon Kim, 2019. "Market Segmentation and Software Security: Pricing Patching Rights," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(10), pages 4575-4597, October.
    16. Chen, Chialin & Liu, Lucy Qian, 2014. "Pricing and quality decisions and financial incentives for sustainable product design with recycled material content under price leadership," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(PC), pages 666-677.
    17. Kopalle, Praveen K. & Kannan, P.K. & Boldt, Lin Bao & Arora, Neeraj, 2012. "The impact of household level heterogeneity in reference price effects on optimal retailer pricing policies," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 102-114.
    18. Palsule-Desai, Omkar D. & Tirupati, Devanath & Shah, Janat, 2015. "Product line design and positioning using add-on services," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 16-33.
    19. Steven M. Shugan & Jihwan Moon & JQiaoni Shi & Nanda S. Kumar, 2017. "Product Line Bundling: Why Airlines Bundle High-End While Hotels Bundle Low-End," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(1), pages 124-139, January.
    20. Hongmin Li & Scott Webster & Gwangjae Yu, 2020. "Product Design Under Multinomial Logit Choices: Optimization of Quality and Prices in an Evolving Product Line," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1011-1025, September.
    21. Wen Diao & Mushegh Harutyunyan & Baojun Jiang, 2023. "Consumer Fairness Concerns and Dynamic Pricing in a Channel," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(3), pages 569-588, May.

    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:eee:ejores:v:302:y:2022:i:3:p:1045-1062. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    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.