Preisschwellen und Deckungsbeitrag — Verschenkt der Handel gro Potentiale?

Summary

Retailers have been criticized for heavily relying on odd prices although their advantage over even prices has not been convincingly proven. In this paper we argue that such behavior does not have to stern solely from tradition, but may be seen as a rational way of dealing with uncertainty.

We review 22 empirical studies on the effects of odd versus even prices and find that the results are inconclusive as to whether threshold effects exist. In an analysis of profit contributions we then show that in the light of such uncertainty it is rational to set odd prices. The reason is that only small losses in profit contribution are incurred when odd prices are set although no thresholds exist. In the opposite case, however, losses can be quite substantial. Results of a response surface analysis show the size of the two errors for a wide range of response parameters.