Seminars & Groups

Pricing and Procurement in a Market with Strategic Consumers

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Date: 10-21-2008
Start Time: 1:00pm
End Time: 2:00pm
Speaker: Gerard Cachon, Wharton School of Business: University of Pennsylvania
Location: Uris 333

ABSTRACT

Some consumers can strategically time the purchases whereas others are more impatient. This has implications for how a retailer should price over a selling season. Should the retailer set an initial price and stick to it, never taking a mark down? Or should the retailer set an initial price and adapt that price during the season? This paper explores these two strategies and discusses under which conditions one is preferred over the other. Included in this analysis is a discussion of the relationship between the retailer’s pricing strategy and its procurement strategy.

This is joint work with Robert Swinney, Stanford University.

BIO

Gerard Cachon is the Fred Sullivan Professor; Professor of Operations and Information Management at the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.

PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1995; MS, University of Pennsylvania, 1991; BAS, University of Pennsylvania, 1989; BS, University of Pennsylvania, 1989.

Research Areas:

Supply chain management, incentives in operations management, assortment planning.
Recent Consulting:
4R Systems, Ahold Corporation, GPlay Inc., Medtronic, O’Neill

Current Projects:
Coordination issues in supply chain management, forecasting for inventory and
production planning, assortment planning

Academic Positions Held:

Wharton – 2000 to present: named the Fred Sullivan Professor, 2005; Kraft Foods Term Associate Professor of Operations and Information Management, 2000-2001

Previous appointment: Duke University