IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/76681.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Discount Pricing

Author

Listed:
  • Armstrong, Mark
  • Chen, Yongmin

Abstract

We investigate the marketing practice of framing a price as a discount from an earlier price. We discuss two reasons why a discounted price---rather than a merely low price---can make a rational consumer more willing to purchase. First, a high initial price can indicate the seller has chosen to supply a high-quality product. Second, a seller with limited stock runs a clearance sale, later consumers infer that an unsold product may be poor quality, but if the initial price was higher they do not downgrade their evaluation of quality as much. In either case, if able to do so a seller has an incentive to engage in fictitious pricing, where the reported initial price is exaggerated.

Suggested Citation

  • Armstrong, Mark & Chen, Yongmin, 2017. "Discount Pricing," MPRA Paper 76681, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:76681
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/76681/1/MPRA_paper_76681.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Subir Bose & Gerhard Orosel & Marco Ottaviani & Lise Vesterlund, 2006. "Dynamic monopoly pricing and herding," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(4), pages 910-928, December.
    2. Jidong Zhou, 2011. "Reference Dependence and Market Competition," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 1073-1097, December.
    3. Richard H. Thaler, 2008. "Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 15-25, 01-02.
    4. Urbany, Joel E & Bearden, William O & Weilbaker, Dan C, 1988. "The Effect of Plausible and Exaggerated Reference Prices on Consumer Perceptions and Price Search," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 15(1), pages 95-110, June.
    5. Huanxing Yang & Lixin Ye, 2008. "Search with learning: understanding asymmetric price adjustments," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 547-564, June.
    6. Paul Heidhues & Botond Köszegi, 2004. "The Impact of Consumer Loss Aversion on Pricing," CIG Working Papers SP II 2004-17, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    7. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, April.
    8. Rey, Patrick & Tirole, Jean, 2007. "A Primer on Foreclosure," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 33, pages 2145-2220, Elsevier.
    9. Bagwell, Kyle & Riordan, Michael H, 1991. "High and Declining Prices Signal Product Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 224-239, March.
    10. Gurumurthy Kalyanaram & Russell S. Winer, 1995. "Empirical Generalizations from Reference Price Research," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(3_supplem), pages 161-169.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Curtis R. Taylor, 1999. "Time-on-the-Market as a Sign of Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(3), pages 555-578.
    14. Andrew Rhodes & Chris M. Wilson, 2018. "False advertising," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 49(2), pages 348-369, June.
    15. Lazear, Edward P, 1986. "Retail Pricing and Clearance Sales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 14-32, March.
    16. 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..
    17. Nicola Gennaioli & Alberto Martin & Stefano Rossi, 2014. "Sovereign Default, Domestic Banks, and Financial Institutions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(2), pages 819-866, April.
    18. Nelson, Philip, 1974. "Advertising as Information," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(4), pages 729-754, July/Aug..
    19. Clemens Puppe & Stephanie Rosenkranz, 2011. "Why Suggest Non‐Binding Retail Prices?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 78(310), pages 317-329, April.
    20. Spiegler, Ran, 2014. "Bounded Rationality and Industrial Organization," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199334261.
    21. Subir Bose & Gerhard Orosel & Marco Ottaviani & Lise Vesterlund, 2006. "Dynamic monopoly pricing and herding," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(4), pages 910-928, December.
    22. Paul H. Rubin, 2012. "Regulation of Information and Advertising," Chapters, in: Roger J. Van den Bergh & Alessio M. Pacces (ed.), Regulation and Economics, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    23. Coase, Ronald H, 1972. "Durability and Monopoly," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 143-149, April.
    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. Mark Armstrong & Jidong Zhou, 2016. "Search Deterrence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(1), pages 26-57.
    2. Fabrizi, Simona & Lippert, Steffen & Puppe, Clemens & Rosenkranz, Stephanie, 2016. "Manufacturer suggested retail prices, loss aversion and competition," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 141-153.

    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. Upender Subramanian & Ram C. Rao, 2016. "Leveraging Experienced Consumers to Attract New Consumers: An Equilibrium Analysis of Displaying Deal Sales by Daily Deal Websites," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3555-3575, December.
    2. Heiko Karle & Martin Peitz, 2014. "Competition under consumer loss aversion," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(1), pages 1-31, March.
    3. Fabrizi, Simona & Lippert, Steffen & Puppe, Clemens & Rosenkranz, Stephanie, 2016. "Manufacturer suggested retail prices, loss aversion and competition," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 141-153.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Eric T. Anderson & Duncan I. Simester, 2004. "Long-Run Effects of Promotion Depth on New Versus Established Customers: Three Field Studies," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 4-20, February.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Chu, Hsunchi & Liao, Shuling, 2010. "Buying while expecting to sell: The economic psychology of online resale," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(9-10), pages 1073-1078, September.
    11. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    12. Lillian L. Cheng & Kent B. Monroe, 2013. "An appraisal of behavioral price research (part 1): price as a physical stimulus," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 3(3), pages 103-129, September.
    13. Tülin Erdem & Michael Katz & Baohong Sun, 2010. "A simple test for distinguishing between internal reference price theories," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 303-332, September.
    14. Kim Huat Goh & Jesse C. Bockstedt, 2013. "The Framing Effects of Multipart Pricing on Consumer Purchasing Behavior of Customized Information Good Bundles," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 334-351, June.
    15. Martín-Rodríguez, María, 2018. "A dynamic monopoly with risk-averse consumers," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 61-70.
    16. Tristan Gagnon-Bartsch & Antonio Rosato, 2024. "Quality Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Taste Projection in Markets with Observational Learning," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(11), pages 3746-3787, November.
    17. Francesco Cerigioni & Simone Galperti, 2021. "Listing specs: The effect of framing attributes on choice," Economics Working Papers 1775, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    18. Desmet, Pierre & Feinberg, Fred M., 2003. "Ask and ye shall receive: The effect of the appeals scale on consumers' donation behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 349-376, June.
    19. Ioana Popescu & Yaozhong Wu, 2007. "Dynamic Pricing Strategies with Reference Effects," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 55(3), pages 413-429, June.
    20. Antonio Rosato, 2016. "Selling substitute goods to loss-averse consumers: limited availability, bargains, and rip-offs," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(3), pages 709-733, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Reference dependence; sales tactics; false advertising; fictitious pricing; consumer protection;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing
    • M37 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Advertising

    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:pra:mprapa:76681. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.