Price Management
One recent trend in the retail industry is the increasing market share of private label brands. In combination with an increased knowledge base of private label management this trend puts considerable pressure on consumer goods manufacturers. The Department of Marketing analyzes willingness-to-pay for private label and national brands and addresses the optimal price difference between both.
Another research focus is on price differentiation. In this context, it is essential to reveal willingness-to-pay functions for different consumers. For that purpose, the Department of marketing develops new methodologies of conjoint analysis and implements these methods in software to realize a high usage convenience. The according methods are also used in cooperation with companies in order to find solutions to their pricing problems. Still another research focus is on dynamic pricing mechanisms which become more and more important, especially in an online environment. The Department of Marketing addresses optimal pricing in the search engine marketing context and analyzes reverse pricing mechanisms. In a reverse pricing setting, the seller does not charge a fixed price, but asks the buyer to propose a price. If the proposed price is higher than a secret threshold, the seller accepts and sells the good for that price. Otherwise, the seller rejects the offer. To enable companies to apply this pricing mechanism, software in the form of a web service has been developed. Finally, the Department of Marketing addresses problems that arise from the fact that retailers offer broader assortments each year. As a consequence, prices for the large number of stock keeping units have to be set automatically. The Department of Marketing develops such automated systems and implements them in the retail business.
