IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revind/v42y2013i1p45-61.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Promotional Competition Between Supermarket Chains

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Volpe

Abstract

This article measures promotional competition between two major supermarket chains in the United States. The approach does not rely upon quantity sales data and can be applied to any industry that features advertised sales. The results indicate that retailers do compete using promotions. A supermarket promotion in one week significantly increases the probability of a promotion for the same product at rival stores in the following week. Additionally, competitors seek to match or exceed the price cuts of their rivals when responding to promotions. Oligopolistic competition plays a significant role in determining the timing of sales and retail price variation. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC (outside the USA) 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Volpe, 2013. "Promotional Competition Between Supermarket Chains," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 42(1), pages 45-61, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:42:y:2013:i:1:p:45-61
    DOI: 10.1007/s11151-012-9352-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11151-012-9352-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11151-012-9352-x?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. Daniel Hosken & David Reiffen, 2004. "Patterns of Retail Price Variation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 35(1), pages 128-146, Spring.
    2. Kamel Jedidi & Carl F. Mela & Sunil Gupta, 1999. "Managing Advertising and Promotion for Long-Run Profitability," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    3. Robert C. Blattberg & Richard Briesch & Edward J. Fox, 1995. "How Promotions Work," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(3_supplem), pages 122-132.
    4. Varian, Hal R, 1980. "A Model of Sales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 651-659, September.
    5. Jan-Benedict E. M. Steenkamp & Vincent R. Nijs & Dominique M. Hanssens & Marnik G. Dekimpe, 2005. "Competitive Reactions to Advertising and Promotion Attacks," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 35-54, September.
    6. Lamm, R McFall, 1981. "Prices and Concentration in the Food Retailing Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 67-78, September.
    7. Berck, Peter & Brown, Jennifer & Perloff, Jeffrey M. & Villas-Boas, Sofia Berto, 2008. "Sales: Tests of theories on causality and timing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1257-1273, November.
    8. Daniel Levy & Shantanu Dutta & Mark Bergen & Robert Venable, 1998. "Price adjustment at multiproduct retailers," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 81-120.
    9. Joel Sobel, 1984. "The Timing of Sales," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(3), pages 353-368.
    10. Martin Pesendorfer, 2002. "Retail Sales: A Study of Pricing Behavior in Supermarkets," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(1), pages 33-66, January.
    11. Howard Smith, 2004. "Supermarket Choice and Supermarket Competition in Market Equilibrium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 235-263.
    12. Paul B. Ellickson & Sanjog Misra, 2008. "Supermarket Pricing Strategies," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(5), pages 811-828, 09-10.
    13. Chen, Zhiqi, 2003. "Dominant Retailers and the Countervailing-Power Hypothesis," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(4), pages 612-625, Winter.
    14. Sexton, Richard J. & Xia, Tian & Li, Lan, 2006. "Food Retailers' Pricing and Marketing Strategies, with Implications for Producers," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 35(2), pages 1-18, October.
    15. Cotterill, Ronald W, 1986. "Market Power in the Retail Food Industry: Evidence from Vermont," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(3), pages 379-386, August.
    16. 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.
    17. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2008. "Five Facts about Prices: A Reevaluation of Menu Cost Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(4), pages 1415-1464.
    18. Venkatesh Shankar & Ruth N. Bolton, 2004. "An Empirical Analysis of Determinants of Retailer Pricing Strategy," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 28-49, May.
    19. Davis, David E., 2009. "Price and promotion effects of supermarket mergers," SDSU Working Papers in Progress 12009, South Dakota State University, Department of Economics, revised Jun 2010.
    20. David Besanko & Jean-Pierre Dubé & Sachin Gupta, 2005. "Own-Brand and Cross-Brand Retail Pass-Through," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 123-137, July.
    21. Mills, David E, 1999. "Private Labels and Manufacturer Counterstrategies," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 26(2), pages 125-145, June.
    22. Chih-ching Yu & John M. Connor, 2002. "The price-concentration relationship in grocery retailing: Retesting Newmark," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(4), pages 413-426.
    23. Paul R. Messinger & Chakravarthi Narasimhan, 1995. "Has Power Shifted in the Grocery Channel?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(2), pages 189-223.
    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. Rebecca Cleary & Rigoberto Lopez, 2014. "Supermarket responses to Wal-Mart Supercenter expansion: a structural approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 905-925, November.
    2. Tian Xia & Brian Sancewich, 2018. "Interaction between buyer power in agricultural procurement and seller power in food retailing, and optimal allocation of anti-trust efforts," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-19, December.
    3. Carlo Russo & Rachael Goodhue, 2018. "Farmgate prices, retail prices, and supermarkets' pricing decisions: An integrated approach," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(1), pages 24-43, December.
    4. Holzer, Patrick Sebastian, 2020. "The effect of time-varying factors on promotional activity in the German milk market," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    5. 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.

    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. Volpe, Richard J., III, 2011. "Evaluating the Performance of U.S. Supermarkets: Pricing Strategies, Competition from Hypermarkets, and Private Labels," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1-16, December.
    2. Hao Lan & Tim Lloyd & Wyn Morgan & Paul W. Dobson, 2022. "Are food price promotions predictable? The hazard function of supermarket discounts," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 64-85, February.
    3. Holzer, Patrick Sebastian, 2020. "The effect of time-varying factors on promotional activity in the German milk market," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    4. Volpe, Richard, 2011. "The Relationship Between National Brand and Private Label Food Products: Prices, Promotions, Recessions, and Recoveries," Economic Research Report 262234, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    5. 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.
    6. Lan, Hao & Lloyd, Tim A. & Morgan, C. Wyn, 2013. "The hazard function of sales: An analysis of UK supermarket food prices," 87th Annual Conference, April 8-10, 2013, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 151972, Agricultural Economics Society.
    7. Berck, Peter & Brown, Jennifer & Perloff, Jeffrey M. & Villas-Boas, Sofia Berto, 2008. "Sales: Tests of theories on causality and timing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1257-1273, November.
    8. 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.
    9. Ferto, Imre & Bakucs, Lajos Zoltan, 2009. "The patterns of retail price variation. The case of milk products," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51670, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    10. P. Février & L. Wilner, 2012. "Do Consumers Correctly Expect Price Reductions? Testing Dynamic Behavior," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers g2012-03, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
    11. Daniel Garcia & Jun Honda & Maarten Janssen, 2017. "The Double Diamond Paradox," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 63-99, August.
    12. Victor Aguirregabiria & Margaret Slade, 2017. "Empirical models of firms and industries," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1445-1488, December.
    13. Carlo Russo & Rachael Goodhue, 2018. "Farmgate prices, retail prices, and supermarkets' pricing decisions: An integrated approach," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(1), pages 24-43, December.
    14. Anania, Giovanni & Nisticò, Rosanna, 2014. "Price dispersion and seller heterogeneity in retail food markets," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 190-201.
    15. Johan F.M. Swinnen & Anneleen Vandeplas, 2010. "Market power and rents in global supply chains," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 41(s1), pages 109-120, November.
    16. Sandro Shelegia & Chris M. Wilson, 2016. "A Generalized Model of Sales," Working Papers 934, Barcelona School of Economics.
    17. Allender, William J. & Richards, Timothy J., 2012. "Brand Loyalty and Price Promotion Strategies: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 323-342.
    18. Volpe, Richard J., III & Lavoie, Nathalie, 2006. "The Effect of Wal-Mart Supercenters on Grocery Prices in New England," Working Paper Series 14515, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Department of Resource Economics.
    19. Nakamura, Emi & Steinsson, Jón, 2011. "Price setting in forward-looking customer markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 220-233.
    20. Fertő, Imre & Bakucs, Lajos Zoltán, 2009. "Árleszállítások és a kiskereskedelmi árak változása a tejtermékek piacán [Sales and retail price patterns on the market for milk products]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 634-647.

    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:kap:revind:v:42:y:2013:i:1:p:45-61. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.