Does It Matter How Price Promotions Are Operationalized?

Abstract

Does it matter if managers use an absolute amount or the relativepercentage discount when determining the optimal price and promotionalstrategy for a good? Intuitively, one might expect that the results ofboth models (deal amount and deal percentage) would be identical. Thisresearch shows that the deal-percentage model dominates the deal-amountmodel on three dimensions: (1) consumers pay more when an amount modelis used, (2) the seller has lower profits and different promotionalstrategies when an amount model is used, and (3) consumer behavior isunrealistically constrained by the amount model. This research showsthat whenever the seller offers a promotion in the deal-amount model,the net price paid by the consumer (regular price minus the deal) isalways higher than the net price in the deal-discount model. Thisresult implies that the ultimate price and promotional strategy (suchas depth of promotion, timing of promotions, and so on) prescribed bythe models are different. Additionally, this research shows that whenconsumers respond similarly in the models, the seller's profits arehigher in the deal-percentage model. This finding is a direct result ofthe higher net price in the deal-amount model. Finally, contrary toempirical findings in the marketing literature, the deal-amount modelrequires consumers to respond more strongly to price changes than topromotions (that is, the promotional elasticity plus one must be lessthan the magnitude of the price elasticity) for the optimal price to bepositive. The deal-percentage model does not place similar restrictionson consumer behavior.