Article: The present state of the game 'hide and seek' in pricing Journal: International Journal of Business Performance Management (IJBPM) 2018 Vol.19 No.2 pp.158 - 168 Abstract: The first and second decade of the 21st century brought about new global economic and technological changes, which place pricing even more in the forefront of social and managerial considerations. It is enough to refer to three striking trends: 1) the global downturn of the economy resulting in a radical change of consumer behaviour, in increasing price sensitivity of the people; 2) the rapid economic development of the big emerging countries resulting in the clutter of goods and services on the world market with quite different cost structures compared to those of the advanced countries; 3) the fast development of the information and communication technology making it possible for customers to compare the price offers of the different sellers and enabling sellers to implement more and more sophisticated pricing methods to make the comparison more difficult. The objective of this paper is to shed light to a new game played among sellers and buyers to get temporary result in obtaining bigger share from the 'pie' called by the economists as producers' and consumers' surplus. The game is referred to by the paper as 'hide and seek in pricing'. The study intends to analyse the pricing behaviour of companies and consumers in this new setting. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: The present state of the game 'hide and seek' in pricing

Authors: Gábor Rekettye; Jonathan Liu

Addresses: Institute of Marketing and Tourism, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Pécs, Hungary ' Regent's Centre for Transnational Studies, Faculty of Business and Management, Regent's University, London, UK

Abstract: The first and second decade of the 21st century brought about new global economic and technological changes, which place pricing even more in the forefront of social and managerial considerations. It is enough to refer to three striking trends: 1) the global downturn of the economy resulting in a radical change of consumer behaviour, in increasing price sensitivity of the people; 2) the rapid economic development of the big emerging countries resulting in the clutter of goods and services on the world market with quite different cost structures compared to those of the advanced countries; 3) the fast development of the information and communication technology making it possible for customers to compare the price offers of the different sellers and enabling sellers to implement more and more sophisticated pricing methods to make the comparison more difficult. The objective of this paper is to shed light to a new game played among sellers and buyers to get temporary result in obtaining bigger share from the 'pie' called by the economists as producers' and consumers' surplus. The game is referred to by the paper as 'hide and seek in pricing'. The study intends to analyse the pricing behaviour of companies and consumers in this new setting.

Keywords: changing environment; pricing; price transparency; pricing techniques; zone of pricing; ZOP; pricing behaviours; price comparison; elasticity of demand; business models.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPM.2018.090687

International Journal of Business Performance Management, 2018 Vol.19 No.2, pp.158 - 168

Received: 03 Mar 2016
Accepted: 16 Jul 2016
Published online: 27 Mar 2018 *

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Title: The present state of the game 'hide and seek' in pricing

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