5,827 research outputs found
Segmented switchers and retailer pricing strategies
Empirical studies reveal a surprisingly wide variety of price promotion strategies among retailers, even among Internet sellers of undifferentiated homogenous goods such as books and music CD’s. Several empirical findings remain puzzling, particularly that within the same market some small retailers decide to deeply discount, while other small retailers forgo the price-sensitive switchers and price high to play their niche. We present theoretical and empirical analyses that address these varied pricing strategies. Our model of three asymmetric firms shows that under multiple switcher segments, where different switchers compare prices at different retailers, firm-specific loyalty is not sufficient to explain the variety of retailer pricing strategies. We demonstrate that a retailer’s pricing strategy is driven by the ratio of the size of switcher segments for which the retailer competes to its loyal segment size. The relative switcher-to-loyal ratios among retailers explain when a firm is more or less inclined to discount deeply or frequently. We thereby identify when a small firm finds it optimal to play the niche and price high, despite having few loyals, or to discount and go for the switchers. Our analysis reveals several interesting findings, such as a small firm that benefits from strategically limiting its access to switchers. The results of two empirical studies confirm our model’s predictions for varied retailer pricing strategies in the context of Internet booksellers
Theory and evidence on pricing by asymmetric oligopolies
We present an analysis of markets with many asymmetrically positioned retailers that compete for the business of both informed and uninformed customers for a homogenous good, such as software, music, book or a brand-name appliance. We show that two forms of asymmetry, one related to loyal segment sizes of retailers and one related to the positioning of firms, completely explain the observed price dispersion in such markets and the multitude of asymmetrical strategies adopted by retailers. The stochastic dominance of empirical mixed strategy measures is used to test the theory with data on 968 books from 10 online retailers
Throughput Analysis of Buffer-Constrained Wireless Systems in the Finite Blocklength Regime
In this paper, wireless systems operating under queueing constraints in the
form of limitations on the buffer violation probabilities are considered. The
throughput under such constraints is captured by the effective capacity
formulation. It is assumed that finite blocklength codes are employed for
transmission. Under this assumption, a recent result on the channel coding rate
in the finite blocklength regime is incorporated into the analysis and the
throughput achieved with such codes in the presence of queueing constraints and
decoding errors is identified. Performance of different transmission strategies
(e.g., variable-rate, variable-power, and fixed-rate transmissions) is studied.
Interactions between the throughput, queueing constraints, coding blocklength,
decoding error probabilities, and signal-to-noise ratio are investigated and
several conclusions with important practical implications are drawn
An Energy Efficiency Perspective on Training for Fading Channels
In this paper, the bit energy requirements of training-based transmission
over block Rayleigh fading channels are studied. Pilot signals are employed to
obtain the minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) estimate of the channel fading
coefficients. Energy efficiency is analyzed in the worst case scenario where
the channel estimate is assumed to be perfect and the error in the estimate is
considered as another source of additive Gaussian noise. It is shown that bit
energy requirement grows without bound as the snr goes to zero, and the minimum
bit energy is achieved at a nonzero snr value below which one should not
operate. The effect of the block length on both the minimum bit energy and the
snr value at which the minimum is achieved is investigated. Flash training
schemes are analyzed and shown to improve the energy efficiency in the low-snr
regime. Energy efficiency analysis is also carried out when peak power
constraints are imposed on pilot signals.Comment: To appear in the Proc. of the 2007 IEEE International Symposium on
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