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Many consumer durable retailers often do not advertise their prices and instead ask
consumers to call them for prices. It is easy to see that this practice increases
the consumers' cost of learning the prices of products they are considering, yet firms
commonly use such practices. Not advertising prices may reduce the firm's advertising
costs, but the strategic effects of doing so are not clear. Our objective is to examine
the strategic effects of this practice. In particular, how does making price discovery
more difficult for consumers affect competing retailers' price, service decisions,
and profits? We develop a model in which a manufacturer sells its product through
a high-service retailer and a low-service retailer. Consumers can purchase the retail
service at the high-end retailer and purchase the product at the competing low-end
retailer. Therefore, the high-end retailer faces a free-riding problem. A retailer
first chooses its optimal service levels. Then, it chooses its optimal price levels.
Finally, a retailer decides whether to advertise its prices. The model results in
four structures: (1) both retailers advertise prices, (2) only the low-service retailer
advertises price, (3) only the high-service retailer advertises price, and (4) neither
retailer advertises price. We find that when a retailer does not advertise its price
and makes price discovery more difficult for consumers, the competition between the
retailers is less intense. However, the retailer is forced to charge a lower price.
In addition, if the competing retailer does advertise its prices, then the competing
retailer enjoys higher profit margins. We identify conditions under which each of
the above four structures is an equilibrium and show that a low-service retailer not
advertising its price is a more likely outcome than a high-service retailer doing
so. We then solve the manufacturer's problem and find that there are several instances
when a retailer's advertising decisions are different from what the manufacturer would
want. We describe the nature of this channel coordination problem and identify some
solutions. © 2010 INFORMS.
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