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Timing of seasonal sales

Author

Listed:
  • Pascal Courty
  • Li Hao
Abstract
We present a model of timing of seasonal sales where stores choose several designs at the beginning of the season without knowing wich one, if any, will be fashionable. Fashionable designs have a chance to fetch high prices in fashion markets while non-fashionable ones must be sold in a discount market. In the beginning of the season, stores charge high prices in the hope of capturing their fashion market. As the end of the season approaches with goods still on the shelves, stores adjust downward their expectations that they are carrying a fashionable design, and may have sales to capture the discount market. Having a greater number of designs induces a store to put one of them on sales earlier to test the market. Moreover, price competition in the discount market induces stores to start sales earlier because of a greater perceived first-mover advantage in capturing the discount market. More competition, perhaps due to decreases in the cost of product innovation, makes sales occur even earlier. These results are consistent with the observation that the trend toward earlier sales since mid-1970's coincides with increasing product varieties in fashion good markets and increasing store competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Pascal Courty & Li Hao, 1998. "Timing of seasonal sales," Economics Working Papers 331, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:331
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Gabriel Bitran & René Caldentey, 2003. "An Overview of Pricing Models for Revenue Management," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 5(3), pages 203-229, August.
    4. Dong, Zhiliang & An, Haizhong & Liu, Sen & Li, Zhengyang & Yuan, Meng, 2020. "Research on the time-varying network structure evolution of the stock indices of the BRICS countries based on fluctuation correlation," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 63-74.
    5. Lim, Bryan & Arık, Sercan Ö. & Loeff, Nicolas & Pfister, Tomas, 2021. "Temporal Fusion Transformers for interpretable multi-horizon time series forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1748-1764.
    6. Otero, Daniel F. & Escallón, Mariana & López, Cristina & Akhavan-Tabatabaei, Raha, 2019. "Optimal timing of airline promotions under dilution," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(3), pages 981-995.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Seasonal sales; clearance sales; pricing policies; competitive pricing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General

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