Chain-store pricing for strategic accommodation

Chain-stores now dominate most areas of retailing. While retailers may operate nationally or even internationally, the markets they compete in are largely local. How should they best operate pricing policy in respect of the different markets served - price uniformly across the local markets or on a local basis according to market conditions? We model this by allowing local market differences, with entry being inevitable in certain markets while being naturally or institutionally blockaded in others. We show that practising price discrimination is not always best for the chain-store. Competitive conditions exist under which uniform pricing can raise profits

CHAIN-STORE PRICING FOR STRATEGIC ACCOMMODATION

Chain-stores now dominate most areas of retailing. While retailers may operate nationally or even internationally, the markets they compete in are largely local. How should they best operate pricing policy in respect of the different markets served - price uniformly across the local markets or on a local basis according to market conditions? We model this by allowing local market differences, with entry being inevitable in certain markets while being naturally or institutionally blockaded in others. We show that practising price discrimination is not always best for the chain-store. Competitive conditions exist under which uniform pricing can raise profits.Chain-store ; Pricing Policy ; Price Discrimination ; Local Markets

Chain-Store Competition: Customized vs. Uniform Pricing

Retail chains essentially practice one of two broad strategies in setting prices across their stores. The more straightforward is to set a chain- or country- wide price. Alternatively, managers of retail chains may customize prices to the store level according to local demand and competitive conditions. For example, a chain may price lower in a location with lower demand and/or more competition. However, despite having the ability to customize prices to local market conditions, some choose instead to commit to uniform pricing with a “one price policy” across their entire store network. As an illustration, we focus on UK supermarket chains. Is there an advantage to be gained from deliberately choosing not to price discriminate across locations? We show generally and illustrate through means of a specific model that there exists a strategic incentive to soften competition in competitive markets by committing not to customize prices at the store level and instead adopt uniform pricing across the store network, and to raise overall profits thereby. Furthermore, we characterize quite precisely the circumstances under which uniform pricing is, and is not, profitable and illustrate that under a range of circumstances uniform pricing may be the preferable strategy.Chain-store retailers ; price discrimination ; uniform pricing ; local pricing ; commitment

Market Consolidation and Pricing Developments in Grocery Retailing: A Case Study

When large retailers merge, there is a concern that a sudden and marked increase in concentration will alter the intensity and nature of price competition to the detriment of consumers. This chapter considers just such a situation in regard to UK grocery retailing, which has witnessed steadily increasing concentration over recent years, advanced by a series of mergers. Specifically, we examine the nature of price competition amongst the major “one-stop-shop” retail chains before, during, and after the Safeway/Morrison merger in March 2004.We find the merger offered consumers an immediate windfall benefit — with average prices falling straight after the merger—and more intriguingly appears to have led to (or at least is associated with) a marked change in the character of price competition in the market

Sowing the Dragon's Teeth: Amateurism, Domesticity, and the Anglophone Audience for Shakespeare, 1607-2007

This essay probes the established history of how Shakespeare developed a worldwide audience by placing it alongside the hitherto neglected his­tory of how his works have been performed by non-professional groups. It singles out three key dates in the received history of Shakespeare's reception—1623 (which saw the publication of the Folio), 1774 (which saw the publication of the first fully academic monograph about Shake­speare) and 1932 (which saw the opening of the Folger Shakespeare Li­brary in Washington DC and of the rebuilt Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford)—and considers how our sense of their importance might be altered by the consideration of less widely-studied firsts from the same years, namely the first recorded non-professional production of a Shakespeare play on British soil (at Surrenden in Kent), the first record­ed all-female production of a Shakespeare play (in the Cathedral Close in Salisbury), and the opening of the first Shakespearean theater to be de­signed, owned and built by a woman (at Minack in Cornwall)

Information enforcement in learning with graphics : improving syllogistic reasoning skills

This thesis is an investigation into the factors that contribute to good choices among graphical systems used in teaching, and the feasibility of implementing teaching software that uses this knowledge.The thesis describes a mathematical metric derived from a cognitive theory of human diagram processing. The theory characterises differences among representations by their ability to express information. The theory provides the factors and relationships needed to build the metric. It says that good representations are easily processed because they are more vivid, more tractable and less expressive, than poor representations.The metric is applied to abstract systems for teaching and learning syllogistic reasoning, TARSKI'S WORLD, EULER CIRCLES, VENN DIAGRAMS and CARROLL'S GAME OF LOGIC. A rank ordering reflects the value of each system predicted by the theory and the metric. The theory, the metric and the systems are then tested in empirical studies. Five studies involving sixty-eight learners, examined the benefit of software based on these abstract systems.Studies showed the theory correctly predicted learners' success with the circle systems and poorer performance with TARSKI'S WORLD. The metric showed small but clear differences in expressivity between the circle systems. Differences between results of the learners using the circle systems contradicted the predictions of the metric.Learners with mathematical training were better equipped and more successful at learning syllogistic reasoning with the systems. Performance of learners without mathematical training declined after using the software systems. Diagrams drawn by learners together with video footage collected during problem solving, led to a catalogue of errors, misconceptions and some helpful strategies for learning from graphical systems.A cognitive style test investigated the poor performance of non-mathematically trained learners. Learners with mathematics training showed serialist and versatile learning styles while learners without this training showed a holist learning style. This is consistent with the hypothesis that non-mathematically trained learners emphasise the use of semantic cues during learning and problem solving.A card-sorting task investigated learners' preferences for parts of the graphical lexicon used in the diagram systems. Preferences for the EULER lexicon increased difficulty in explaining the system's poor results in earlier studies. Video footage of learners using the systems in the final study illustrated useful learning strategies and improved performance with EULER while individual instruction was available.Further work describes a preliminary design for an adaptive syllogism tutor and other related work

The effect of boundary constraints on finite element modelling of the human pelvis

The use of finite element analysis (FEA) to investigate the biomechanics of anatomical systems critically relies on the specification of physiologically representative boundary conditions. The biomechanics of the pelvis has been the specific focus of a number of FEA studies previously, but it is also a key aspect in other investigations of, for example, the hip joint or new design of hip prostheses. In those studies, the pelvis has been modelled in a number of ways with a variety of boundary conditions, ranging from a model of the whole pelvic girdle including soft tissue attachments to a model of an isolated hemi-pelvis. The current study constructed a series of FEA models of the same human pelvis to investigate the sensitivity of the predicted stress distributions to the type of boundary conditions applied, in particular to represent the sacro-iliac joint and pubic symphysis. Varying the method of modelling the sacro-iliac joint did not produce significant variations in the stress distribution, however changes to the modelling of the pubic symphysis were observed to have a greater effect on the results. Over-constraint of the symphysis prevented the bending of the pelvis about the greater sciatic notch, and underestimated high stresses within the ilium. However, permitting medio-lateral translation to mimic widening of the pelvis addressed this problem. These findings underline the importance of applying the appropriate boundary conditions to FEA models, and provide guidance on suitable methods of constraining the pelvis when, for example, scan data has not captured the full pelvic girdle. The results also suggest a valid method for performing hemi-pelvic modelling of cadaveric or archaeological remains which are either damaged or incomplete

Pricing in inflationary times- the penny drops

We investigate micro pricing behaviour in groceries (the UK’s most important consumer market) over eight years including the inflationary period of early 2008. We find behaviour sharply distinguished from most previous work, namely that overall basket prices rise but more individual prices fall than rise! This is consistent with retailers obscuring the fact of rising basket prices. We employ a significant new source of data that captures cross-competitor interplay in prices at a very detailed level. Unusually but importantly, our work takes into account that consumers buy baskets of goods, rather than individual products, when shopping at supermarkets.

Vertical restraints and competition policy

This report considers the private and social welfare effects of vertical restraints - whereby contractual arrangements between suppliers (manufacturers) and distributors (retailers) extend beyond simple arms-length pricing. It seeks to synthesise and extend existing theory on vertical restraints, so as to identify the conditions where detrimental effects are likely to dominate benign social welfare effects, and vice versa, with the aim of developing a practical framework for the analysis of vertical restraints

Chain-store competition: customized vs. uniform pricing

Retail chains essentially practice one of two broad strategies in setting prices across their stores. The more straightforward is to set a chain- or country- wide price. Alternatively, managers of retail chains may customize prices to the store level according to local demand and competitive conditions. For example, a chain may price lower in a location with lower demand and/or more competition. However, despite having the ability to customize prices to local market conditions, some choose instead to commit to uniform pricing with a “one price policy” across their entire store network. As an illustration, we focus on UK supermarket chains. Is there an advantage to be gained from deliberately choosing not to price discriminate across locations? We show generally and illustrate through means of a specific model that there exists a strategic incentive to soften competition in competitive markets by committing not to customize prices at the store level and instead adopt uniform pricing across the store network, and to raise overall profits thereby. Furthermore, we characterize quite precisely the circumstances under which uniform pricing is, and is not, profitable and illustrate that under a range of circumstances uniform pricing may be the preferable strategy