Demand Dynamics in the Seasonal Goods Industry: An Empirical Analysis
Demand Dynamics in the Seasonal Goods Industry: An Empirical Analysis
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DOI：
10.1287/mksc.1110.0693
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发表时间：
2012-03
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Gonca P. Soysal;L. Krishnamurthi
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Gonca P. Soysal;L. Krishnamurthi
本研究开发并估计了一个动态模型的消费者选择行为在市场上的季节性商品，产品销售在有限的季节和可用性是有限的。在这些市场中，零售商通常使用动态降价政策，即在季节开始时宣布初始零售价格，随后随着季节的推移降价。战略消费者面临着在季节早期购买（价格较高但商品可用）和购买后期（价格较低但缺货风险较高）之间的权衡。如果商品一被购买就开始提供效用（例如，服装），消费者在本季度购买较早的产品也可以得到更多的使用相比，那些购买较晚。我们的结构模型结合了三个基本特征，对季节性商品的需求建模：价格变化，有限的可用性，以及可能依赖于购买时间的总消费效用。在这个模型中，不同的消费者对未来的价格和产品的可用性有预期，他们战略性地选择购买时间。我们估计的模型，从时尚商品零售商的总销售和库存数据。结果表明，在时尚商品的背景下，忽略消费者对未来可用性的期望或总消费效用在整个季节的变化可能会导致有偏见的需求估计。我们发现，战略消费者推迟购买，以利用降价，这些战略延迟损害零售商的收入。面对战略消费者的零售商收入比面对短视消费者的零售商收入低9%。另一方面，有限的可用性通过激励消费者更早购买来减少战略延迟的程度。我们发现，战略延迟对零售商收入的影响将高达35%，如果没有缺货风险。通过反事实实验，我们表明，最高的零售商利润是通过在本赛季初提供小减价。另一方面，考虑到当前的降价比例，零售商可以通过减少库存来提高利润，因为消费者会加速购买，并在预期未来会出现短缺时以更高的价格购买。只要供应量的减少不是很大，早期高价销售所获得的利润就可以弥补整体销售减少所造成的损失。
This study develops and estimates a dynamic model of consumer choice behavior in markets for seasonal goods, where products are sold over a finite season and availability is limited. In these markets, retailers often use dynamic markdown policies in which an initial retail price is announced at the beginning of the season and the price is subsequently marked down as the season progresses. Strategic consumers face a trade-off between purchasing early in the season, when prices are higher but goods are available, and purchasing later, when prices are lower but the stockout risk is higher. If the good starts providing utility as soon as it is purchased (e.g., apparel), consumers purchasing earlier in the season can also get more use from the product compared to those purchasing later. Our structural model incorporates three features essential for modeling the demand for seasonal goods: changing prices, limited availability, and possible dependence of total consumption utility on the time of purchase. In this model, heterogeneous consumers have expectations about future prices and product availability, and they strategically time their purchases. We estimate the model using aggregate sales and inventory data from a fashion goods retailer. The results indicate that, in the fashion goods context, ignoring consumers' expectations about future availability or the change in total consumption utility over the season can lead to biased demand estimates. We find that strategic consumers delay their purchases to take advantage of markdowns and that these strategic delays hurt the retailer's revenues. Retailer revenues facing strategic consumers are 9% lower than they would have been facing myopic consumers. Limited availability, on the other hand, reduces the extent of strategic delays by motivating consumers to purchase earlier. We find that the impact of strategic delays on retailer revenues would have been as high as 35% if there were no stockout risk. By means of counterfactual experiments, we show that the highest retailer profits are achieved by offering small markdowns early in the season. On the other hand, given current markdown percentages, the retailer can improve profits by carrying less stock as consumers accelerate purchases and purchase at higher prices when they anticipate scarcity in future periods. As long as the reduction in availability is not great, the profit gain from earlier higher-priced sales can overcome the loss resulting from the reduction in overall sales.