Intertemporal Pricing and Consumer Stockpiling

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Su, Xuanming
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: OPERATIONS RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0030-364X
• DOI: 10.1287/opre.1090.0797
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 1133-1147
• 关键词: strategic customer behavior; purchase behavior; sales; inventory; IMPACT; consumption; MODEL; expectations; COMPETITION; management

摘要

We study a dynamic pricing problem for a class of products with stable consumption patterns (e. g., household items, staple foods). Consumers may stock up the product at current prices for future consumption, but they incur inventory holding costs. We model this situation as a dynamic game over an infinite time horizon: in each period, the seller sets a price, and each consumer chooses how many units to buy. We develop a solution methodology based on rational expectations. By endowing each player with beliefs, we decouple the dynamic game into individual dynamic programs for each player. We solve for the rational expectations equilibrium, where all players make optimal dynamic decisions given correct beliefs about others' behavior. In equilibrium, the seller may either charge a constant fixed price or offer periodic price promotions at predictable time intervals. We show that promotions are useful when frequent shoppers are willing to pay more for the product than are occasional shoppers. We also develop several model extensions to study the impact of consumer stockpiling on the seller's inventory, production, and rationing strategies.