Pricing Perishables with Uncertain Demand, Substitutes, and Consumer Heterogeneity

Abstract

Within the marketing window for perishables such as food products, demand uncertainty is complicated by price sensitivity and propensity to postpone purchase that is heterogeneous across consumers. These features pose substantial challenges to retailers when pricing multiple products over time and across consumer segments. Getting the dynamic profile of prices right has implications for performance of vertical food chains ranging from revenues to food waste. This paper proposes an approach to dynamic pricing that is demonstrated to improve performance within this setting.