Title: A design model for knowledge-based pricing services in the retail industry

Authors: Tobias Kowatsch; Wolfgang Maass

Addresses: Institute of Technology Management, University of St. Gallen (ITEM-HSG), Dufourstrasse 40a, 9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland. ' Institute of Technology Management, University of St. Gallen (ITEM-HSG), Dufourstrasse 40a, 9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland; Research Center for Intelligent Media, Hochschule Furtwangen University (RCIM-HFU), Robert-Gerwig-Platz 1, 78120 Furtwangen, Germany

Abstract: Marketing research has identified several benefits of dynamic pricing strategies in the retail industry. However, today|s retailers are limited to apply them in real-time to customer needs as corresponding pricing services provided by smart product infrastructures have not been adopted so far. In addition, dynamic pricing strategies rely on a business service ecosystem of retailers, suppliers, customers and regulatory bodies and thus, interoperability is required. Because unprecedented, our objectives are therefore to propose, implement and evaluate a design model for pricing services that rely on explicit semantics and rules, denoted as knowledge-based pricing services (KPSs). In this work, we propose a design model for KPSs and empirically evaluate their utility from a customer perspective with the help of a web-based application. We finally draw implications for business models in the retail industry and discuss tools that already exist to adopt KPSs in the near future.

Keywords: pricing services; knowledge-based design; KBD; retail industry; business ecosystems; operational agility; interoperability; business modelling; semantic services; ontologies; web-based information systems; adoption; diffusion; empirical study; experiment; retailing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWET.2011.043436

International Journal of Web Engineering and Technology, 2011 Vol.6 No.4, pp.302 - 319

Published online: 28 Feb 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article