Empirical studies reveal a surprisingly wide variety of pricing strategies among retailers, even among Internet sellers of undifferentiated homogeneous goods, such as books and music CDs. Several empirical findings remain puzzling; for example, within the same market, some small retailers decide to discount deeply, whereas others forgo the price-sensitive switchers and price high. The authors p...

BACKGROUND Knowledge about the prices of medicines used in hospitals, particularly the actually achieved ones, is scant. There are indications of large discounts and the provision of medicines cost-free to Austrian hospitals. The study aims to survey the official and actual prices of medicines procured by Austrian hospitals and to compare them to the out-patient prices. METHODS Primary price ...

Mixed logit models represent a powerful discrete choice analytical model but require assumptions about the functional form of the parameter distributions. The use of unbounded distributions, such as the normal distribution, may be regarded as unsuitable where theory indicates that all are negatively affected by increases in an attribute, such as price. Bounded distributions such as the triangul...

A discount may be defined by the location in which, and frame by which, it is communicated. Discount framing, particularly the differences etween cents-off and percentage-off discounts, has been widely studied. Discount location (e.g., proximate to or distal from regular price info) has eceived considerably less attention. We employ the proximity-compatibility principle and tenets of human memo...

We examine the profitability and implications of online discount vouchers, a relatively new marketing tool that offers consumers large discounts when they prepay for participating firms’ goods and services. Within a model of repeat experience good purchase, we examine two mechanisms whereby a discount voucher service can benefit affiliated firms: price discrimination and advertising. For vouche...

We estimate a structural model of a sponsored search auction model. To accommodate the “position paradox”, we relax the assumption of decreasing click volumes with position ranks, which is often assumed in the literature. Using data from “Website X”, one of the largest online marketplaces in China, we find that merchants of different qualities adopt different bidding strategies: high quality me...

We consider a market in which …rms can partially observe each consumer’s search behavior in the market. In our main model, a …rm knows whether a consumer is visiting it for the …rst time or whether she is returning after a previous visit. Firms have an incentive to o¤er a lower price on a …rst visit than a return visit, so that new consumers are o¤ered a “buy-now”discount. The ability to o¤er s...

The fastest and most effective way for a company to realize maximum profit is to get its pricing right. The right price can boost profit faster than increasing volume will; the wrong price can shrink it just as quickly. Yet many otherwise tough-minded managers miss out on significant profits because they shy away from pricing decisions for fear that they will alienate their customers. Worse, if...

This paper examines the issue of prices, relative to value, for cancer drugs. The analysis focuses on the effects on manufacturer pricing incentives of insurance coverage, specifically, the effectiveness of patient cost sharing, incentives created by reimbursement rules for physician-dispensed drugs, and payer ability and incentives to negotiate discounts. For pharmacy-dispensed cancer drugs, b...

W develop a consumer response model to evaluate and plan pricing and promotions in durable-good markets. We discuss its implementation in the U.S. automotive industry, which “spends” about $45 billion each year in price promotions. The approach is based on a random effects multinomial nested logit model of product (e.g., a vehicle model, such as Hyundai Tucson), and transaction-type choice. Tra...