Consumers on a Leash: Advertised Sales and Intertemporal Price Discrimination

Aniko Öry

No 2047, Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University

Abstract: The Internet allows sellers to track "window shoppers," consumers who look but do not buy, and to lure them back later by targeting them with an advertised sale. This new technology thus facilitates intertemporal price discrimination, but simultaneously makes it too easy for a seller to undercut her regular price. Because buyers know they could be lured back, the seller is forced to set a lower regular price. Advertising costs can, therefore, serve as a form of commitment: a seller can actually benefit from higher costs of advertising. Based on this framework, the impact of commitment on prices, profits, and welfare are analyzed using a dynamic pricing model. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how buyers� time preferences give rise to price fluctuation or an everyday-low-price in equilibrium.

Keywords: Advertising; Coases conjecture; commitment; dynamic pricing; intertemporal price discrimination; online markets; everyday-low-pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 D21 D42 D90 L11 L12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2016-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ind, nep-mic and nep-mkt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d20/d2047.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2047

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Cowles Foundation, Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA
The price is None.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Brittany Ladd ().