Pricing with Big Data

ended

Will there exist price convergence in the online marketplaces? Is the economy shifting to a form of uniform pricing (each user observes the same price) or to a form of personalized pricing (discounts or prices are specific to groups of consumers)? From a managerial standpoint: What are companies’ optimal pricing strategies? What are the optimal frequencies of price changes? What is the optimal personalization? From the consumer standpoint: What are the behavioral reactions? What are the fairness concerns to those strategies? The research supported by this grant will allow to address these questions. The research lies in the intersection of pricing and big data using data from two main sources: data collected from online marketplaces; and data obtained from field experiments in partnerships with leading European retailers. The study of pricing and big data are core priorities for government agencies in Europe and the United States. For instance, big data is one of the five priorities under the “Digitizing European Industry” initiative and of Horizon 2020. The research will extract concrete implications. For academics, the development of advanced pricing optimization. For managers, the implementation of pricing algorithms in collaboration with academics that incorporates consumers’ concerns. And for policymakers, the understanding and thereby design of policies that regulate and increase price transparency, in a world where the barriers to using personalized data are increasingly complex.