[lbo-talk] Re: Ralph Nader, Suicide Bomber

John Adams jadams01 at sprynet.com
Thu May 6 16:49:43 PDT 2004


On Thursday, May 6, 2004, at 07:05 PM, Miles Jackson wrote:


>> Really? So when you apply a varied set of pricing changes over time
>> across a chain of few hundred stores on an item or a set of items
>> throughout your chain and see how the sales of these and substitute
>> commodities respond, you aren't experimenting (among other things)?
>>
>
> I don't know enough about how they set the prices. If they
> just randomly assign different stores to have diff prices for
> the same item, you're right. Is that really what they do?

I don't know for certain, but if I were a retailer with enough size to run such experiments, I'd do it. Having that sort of knowledge to yourself is a mighty powerful competitive advantage, worth losing some money experimenting with sales. Prices at major chain retailers are adjusted daily, on a store-by-store basis--I assume a little of that variation is exploratory.

All the best,

John A



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