RM Lecture 04

Basic price optimization - Part 2
Brian Kallehauge
42134 Advanced Topics in Operations Research
Fall 2009
Revenue Management Session 04
Outline
Common price-response functions
Price response with competition
The basic price optimization problem
DTU Management Engineering,

Technical University of Denmark
29/10/2009
Recap: the price-response function

The price-response function, d(p), specifies demand, d, as a function of
the price, p.
Typical price-response curves demonstrate
some degree of smooth price response.
A price-response function is assumed:
nonnegative,
continuous,
differentiable, and
downward sloping.
Slope: change in demand divided by

change in price,

Demand decreases with

increasing price.
Demand reaches 0
at a satiating
price P.
Price elasticity: percentage change

in demand divided by percentage
change in price,
29/10/2009
Recap: willingness to pay

Each potential customer is assumed to have a maximum willingness to pay
(w.t.p.) for a given product.
The number of customers whose w.t.p. is at least p is denoted d(p).
The w.t.p. distribution function, w(x), across the population has the following
properties:
For any values 0 p1 < p2,
is the fraction of the population
with w.t.p. p [ p1 , p2 ].
For all nonnegative values of x, 0 w(x) 1.
Recall, d(p) is the number of customers willing to pay at least p for the product.
The total demand D = d(0) corresponds to the number of customers willing
to pay at least zero, i.e. willing to purchase at all.
Then we can derive the price-response function d(p) from the w.t.p
distribution:
The partition into com4

ponents for total demand and

willingness to pay is convenient
for modeling
market.
Revenue Management
Session 04 the
29/10/2009
The price-response function and

the willingness to pay distribution
The derivative of the price-response function then is:
which is nonpositive as required by the downward-sloping demand curve

property.
Conversely, we can derive the w.t.p distribution from the price-response
function:

29/10/2009
Common price-response functions

Linear
Constant elasticity
Logit

29/10/2009
Linear price-response function

The general formula for the linear price-response function is:
where D > 0 and m > 0. D = d(0) is the demand as zero price (total
demand achievable).
The satiating price where the demand drops to zero is P = D/m.
The slope is m for 0 < p < P and 0 for p P.
The elasticity,
, of the linear price-response function is:
The elasticity ranges from 0 at p = 0 and approaches infinity as p

approaches P and drops to 0 again for p > P.
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29/10/2009
Linear price-response function
The linear price-response

function is convenient but
not realistic in a
competitive market.
Satiating
price P.
A linear price-response function.

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Uniform willingness-to-pay distribution

A linear price-response function corresponds to a uniform w.t.p.
distribution, and vice versa.
Recall how to derive the
w.t.p. distribution from the
price-response function:
A uniform willingness-to-pay distribution.

29/10/2009
The constant-elasticity price-response

function
Constant-elasticity price-response functions have a point elasticity that is
the same at all prices, i.e.
This results in the price-response function
where C > 0 is a parameter chosen such that d(1) = C.

The slope of the constant-elasticity price-response function is
However, such price-response functions do not meet the usual assumptions

for price-response functions as the following examples show...
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29/10/2009
Examples of constant-elasticity priceresponse functions

Constant-elasticity priceresponse functions are neither
finite nor satiating.
Demand approaches infinity as
the price approaches zero, i.e.
the total demand D = d(0) = .
Demand does not drop to zero at
any price, no matter how high,
i.e. there is no satiating price P.
Constant-elasticity price-response functions with different elasticities.

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Properties of the constant-elasticity pricefunction

The revenue, R, equals price times demand, i.e.
The slope of the revenue function then is
Since d(p) > 0, the direction of the slope is determined by (1 ):

If < 1 (inelastic demand), then R(p) > 0, i.e. revenue increases
with increasing prices.
If > 1 (elastic demand), then R(p) < 0, i.e. revenue increases
with decreasing prices.
If = 1 (elastic demand), then R(p) = C for any price, i.e. revenue
is constant and independent of price changes.
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Revenue and price elasticity

> 1: Revenue increases with
decreasing price
Clearly, the constant-elasticity

price-response function is
unrealistic as a global priceresponse function
< 1: Revenue increases with

increasing price
= 1: Constant revenue
Revenue as a function of price for the constant-elasticity price-response function.

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Limitations of the linear and constantelasticity price-response functions

Neither the linear nor the constant-elasticity price-response function is
very realistic as a global model.
They can, however, be useful as local estimators of demand as a
function of the price.
The limitation of these two models can be seen by considering their
corresponding willingness-to-pay distributions.
The w.t.p. distribution for a linear price-response function is
uniformly distributed between 0 and some maximum value.
The w.t.p. distribution for a constant-elasticity price-response
function is highly concentrated around 0 and drops steadily as price
increases.
Neither of these functions seem to represent customer behavior
realistically.
14

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Market price and changes in price elasticity

So how would we expect customers to react to changing prices?
In general, price elasticity is high around the market price pm and
low for smaller or larger values of p.
Small changes in demand when prices

are low, i.e. is low.
High demand
at low prices
Dramatic changes in demand when

prices are near the market price,
i.e. is high.
Low demand
at high prices
Small changes in demand when prices

are high, i.e. is low.
S-shaped price-response function.

15

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The logit price-response function

The logit price-response function captures the property that small price
changes around some market price pm will lead to substantial shifts in
demand whereas demand is less sensitive to price changes if they are
much lower or higher than the competitors prices.
Therefore, the logit price-response function is a more suitable way to
estimate changes in demand as a function of price changes in a
competitive market. Such a price-response function can be defined as
Broadly speaking, C > 0 indicates the size of the overall market and b >
0 specifies price sensitivity. Usually we also have that a > 0.
The price-sensitivity curve is steepest at pm = (a/b) which can be
considered to be approximately the market price.
16

29/10/2009
Examples of logit price-response functions
As b grows larger, the

market approaches
perfect competition.
Logit price-response functions with C = 20,000 and pm = 13,000.
17

29/10/2009
Properties of a logit price-response function

The w.t.p. distribution of a logit price-response function follows a bellshaped curve, known as the logistic distribution similar to the normal
distribution.
Highest point of the logistic w.t.p.
distribution is pm = (a/b).
This corresponds to the point
where the slope of the priceresponse function is steepest.
W.t.p. distribution of a logit price-response functions with C = 20,000 and b = 0.0005.

18

29/10/2009
Price response with competition

Competition is a very important fact of life in any market of interest and
most managers consider competition as the primary influence on their
pricing.
There are three different levels at which competition might be included in
pricing and revenue optimization (PRO):
1. Incorporating competition in the price-response function.
2. Explicitly modeling consumer choice.
3. Trying to anticipate competitive reaction.
The first action is easiest whereas the third is the most difficult and most
sophisticated attempt to incorporate competition.
19

29/10/2009
Incorporating competition in the priceresponse function

In many cases, competitors prices are not known at the time of
optimizing the companys prices.
Retailers generally have a good idea of what their major competitors are
charging but they usually lack time or resources to investigate
competition daily or weekly.
So how is it possible to include competition in the price optimization?
Price-response functions are based on history so they already include
typical competitive pricing.
(It would actually be impossible to estimate price-response without
competition.)
If competitors behave similarly in the future, the price-response
function will be a fair representation of market response.
If the market changes the company needs to adjust the priceresponse function and re-optimize the prices.
20

29/10/2009
Consumer-choice modeling
If we have access to current competitive prices, we are better able to
predict customer response to our own prices.
Such information is increasingly available, especially in online
markets.
Consumer-choice modeling is based on the situation in which a number
of competitors provide similar products to some population of customers.
Each competitor sets a price for the product.
Each customer has a willingness to pay for each product,
correponding to the brand value associated with the product.
The surplus for each customer and each product is defined as the
difference between the customers w.t.p. and the price.
Each customer then purchases the product with the highest positive
surplus, corresponding to the best buy of the given brand.
If none of the products have a positive surplus for a customer, he/she
will not purchase at all.
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29/10/2009
Example of customer-choice
A customer can choose between five models of stereo amplifiers.
The models are priced differently and the customer has different
willingness to pay for each model.
This results in a different surplus value for each of the models.
Cheapest model
Highest surplus
Favorite model
Ths customer will purchase the Koshiba amplifier since it provides the
highest surplus, i.e. difference between w.t.p. and price.
Note that neither the cheapest model (Audio Two) nor the customers
favorite (Cacophonia) is purchased.
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29/10/2009
Market share
Assume that we have a fixed population of potential buyers, each with a
positive surplus for at least one product. Then, the market share obtained
by a particular alternative i,
, is
= Fraction of buyers for whom
w.t.p.(i) pi > w.t.p.(j) pj for all j.
Is it realistic
to know all
prices?
Let
be the vector of prices for the alternatives.
Then, a market-share function determines
for all i.
Is assumption
2 realistic?
A market-share function has the following characteristics.

1. The market share of each alternative is between 0 and 1:
2. Every buyer chooses some alternative:
3. Increasing price pi decreases the market share for product i but
increases the market share for other products:
Given the total demand D, the demand for product i is:
23

29/10/2009
Anticipating competitive response

Since we take competitive prices into account in setting our prices, we
should anticipate that our competitors will take our price into account
when setting theirs.
If we drop a price, some competitors will probably match and thereby
erase much of the demand we had predicted by the price decrease.
Attempts to predict competitive response and incorporate it into current
pricing decisions falls within game theory.
Such approaches apply to strategic (long-term) pricing but are less
suitable for tactical (medium-term) pricing and revenue optimization.
There does not appear to be a single pricing and revenue optimization
(PRO) system that explicitly attempts to forecast competitive response
using game theory.
However, many of the (small) price adjustments in PRO are not likely to
trigger any explicit response from the competition, so effort may be
better used elsewhere, at least in many industries.
24

29/10/2009
Incremental costs
Calculating costs may seem much easier than estimating demand, priceresponse, and competitive reactions.
However, retrieving the companys own costs is often not that simple!
PRO decisions are based on the incremental cost of a customer
commitment:
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29/10/2009
The basic price optimization problem

The difference between the price of a product sold and its incremental
cost is called its margin.
The sum of the margins of all products sold during a time period is called
the total contribution.
When a supplyer is selling a single product at price p, the total
contribution will be
where c is incremental cost for the product.

The basic price optimization problem is to maximize total contribution:
I.e. the goal is to find the optimal price for the products sold.
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The total contribution function

The total contribution function m(p) is hill-shaped with a single peak,
corresponding to the optimal price p*.
Pricing too low

(below incremental cost)
implies loosing money.
27

Pricing high never

implies loosing money,
worst case just driving
demand to zero.
29/10/2009
Optimality conditions
Finding the optimal price is an unconstrained optimization problem which
can be solved by taking the derivative of m(p) and set it equal to zero:
The optimal price p* will then satisfy
Rewriting this we get optimality: marginal revenue = marginal cost
Marginal revenue (derivative of total

revenue with respect to price): the additional
revenue achievable by a small increase in
price. Usually positive for low prices and
negative for high prices.
28

Marginal cost: the additional cost the

seller would incur from a small increase in
price. Always negative as increase in price
leads to lower demand and thereby lower
costs.
29/10/2009
Increasing total contribution

If marginal revenue is greater than marginal cost, the supplier can
increase total contribution by increasing the price.
If, on the other hand, marginal revenue is lower than marginal cost,
decreasing the price will increase total contributions.
One way to check the optimality of p* is to use the marginality test:
A particular price can only be optimal if raising the price
by a penny or lowering the price by a penny results in
reduced margin contribution.
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29/10/2009
Optimality and price elasticity

Rewriting the optimality condition by including price elasticity we get
Always nonnegative since

d(p) is downward sloping.
This means that if the point elasticity at our current price is less than 1,
we can increase total contribution by increasing price.
However, typically the price elasticity will increase when prices go up!
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29/10/2009
Checking the optimal price

If maximizing total revenue instead of total contribution, the optimization
problem is
Maximizing total revenue ignores incremental cost.

Incremental cost equals or approaches zero in some service
industries such as movie theaters, video rentals, sporting events, etc.
Also companies that have already purchased a fixed amount of
perishable, nonreplenishable inventory have incremental cost
approximately equal to zero.
Optimality is achieved by
which yields the optimal price satisfying
The revenue-maximizing
price occurs where the price
elasticity is equal to 1
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Revenue- and contribution maximization

The optimal price when maximizing revenue is lower than the optimal
price when maximizing total contribution.
If combining the two

optimization criteria,
the optimal price lies
between p and p*.
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29/10/2009
Summary
The core problem in pricing and revenue optimization is maximizing the
total contribution subject to strategic and/or physical constraints
A key input to any price optimization problem is the price-response
function that relates price to demand
Two common key measures of price sensitivity are the slope and
elasticity of the price-response function
Price-response functions are often a measure of the number of people
whose maximum willingness to pay is greater than a certain price
Logit functions, a reverse S-shaped model, is often appropriate, whereas
linear and constant-elasticity functions tend to be unrealistic
33

29/10/2009
Summary continued
Optimality conditions for the unconstrained price optimization problem:
Marginal revenue equals marginal cost
The derivative of total contribution with respect to price is zero
The contribution margin ratio is equal to 1 over the price elasticity
34

29/10/2009
Customized pricing
Brian Kallehauge
42134 Advanced Topics in Operations Research
Fall 2009
Characterization of list-pricing
The seller offers a stock of goods to different customer segments through
different channels
Potential customers arrive, observe a price, and decide whether or not to
purchase
Seller needs to decide what price to offer for each product to each
customer group through each channel
Seller monitors sales of his goods and periodically updates the prices
and/or availabilities
The airline seat allocation problem is an example of the list-pricing model
36

29/10/2009
Characterization of customized pricing

Potential customers approach the seller, one by one
The seller quotes each one a price
Often (but not always) each potential buyer wants something different,
e.g. different variant or different quantity
The seller can quote a different price for each request
Price can be based on knowledge of the individual buyer, products
requested, general market conditions, and so on.
37

29/10/2009
Example of customized pricing: Unsecured

Consumer Loans
Unsecured loans are monetary loans that are not secured against the
borrower's assets
Amounts for unsecured consumer loans in the UK ranges from 500 to
20,000
Typical terms are between one to seven years
The market has many competitors with more than 20 nationwide
providers in the UK
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29/10/2009
Example of annual percentage rates for a

3000 unsecured consumer loan
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Sales and pricing process for an unsecured

consumer loan
Step 1 First quote. Customers are asked how much they want to borrow,
term, name, age, and time at current address
The bank quotes an APR and monthly payment. About 14% of the
customers drop out (lost quotes)
Step 2 Application. The remainder fills out a more extensive application,
including employer, income, expenses, and other loans outstanding.
The bank assigns a credit score to each applicant. About 50% of the
applications are declined by the bank as too risky.
Step 3 Final quote. The bank can adjust the APR for the accepted
applications. About 90% of customers go on to take a loan
40

29/10/2009
Overview of consumer loan sales and pricing

process
41

29/10/2009
Decision problems of the bank

What APR to offer in the initial quote?
What adjusted APR to offer to customers whose application has been
accepted?
This is a customized-pricing problem because the bank can choose
different APRs for different customers based on type of loan, channel,
and market segment
42

29/10/2009
Overview of differences between list pricing

and customized pricing
The key issue in customized pricing is not if the customer will purchase
but who the customer will purchase from, as opposed to list pricing
In customized pricing the seller can quote a different price to each
customer. The price should reflect the best information the seller has at
that time
In customized pricing the seller can track lost business whereas in list
pricing the seller can only observe how many units he sold. The lost bid
information is important for the estimation of the bid-response function
43

29/10/2009
Bids and price quotes

The existence of a bid or price quote is common in customized pricing
In business-to-business markets the quote is often a response to a
request for proposal (RFP) or request for quote (RFQ) issued by a buyer
In business-to-consumer markets, such as unsecured consumer loans,
the price quote often occurs after a customer phone call or application
In both markets the price quote occurs after the seller knows something
about the buyer and what he wants
This is in contrast to list pricing where customers find prices by accessing
a price list or reading a price tag in a store. Here the prices need to be
set before the seller knows anything about the individual potential
customer
44

29/10/2009
Coexistence of list pricing and custom

pricing
Sellers often use list pricing to set a ceiling, while most customers are
quoted a price at a discount from the list
The manufacturers suggested retail price (MSRP) (in Danish vejledende
udsalgspris) is usually an upper limit on the price
The selling price is determined by some combination of the customers
ability to negotiate and the sellers willingness to sell at a lower price
45

29/10/2009
Calculating optimal customized prices

Definition of the objective function of the customized-pricing problem
(maximize):
Expected contribution at price p = (Deal contribution at p)
(Probability of winning bid at p)
Uncertainty derives from two sources:
Competitive uncertainty
Preference uncertainty
If there was no uncertainty the problem would be easy we would
submit the most profitable bid that would win
No preference uncertainty when buyer must choose lowest-cost bidder
46

29/10/2009
EXAMPLE
Single-competitor model
Suppose you are an auto manufacturer bidding against a single
competitor to sell 50 pickup trucks to a county park district
The park district will buy all 50 trucks from a single supplier and is
committed by law to pick the lowest bidder
Each supplier has been asked to submit a single bid
Your production cost per truck is $10,000
Based on your past experience your belief about what your competitor
will bid can be described by a uniform distribution between $9,000 and
$14,000
What should you bid to maximize expected profitability?
47

29/10/2009
EXAMPLE
Single-competitor model
Call you bid p and the competing bid q
You will win if your bid is less than the competing bid, i.e. p < q
(for simplicity we ignore the possibility of a tie)
Let (p) be the probability that you would win if you bid a price p
Let F(x) be the probability that the competing bid will be less than x
Then,
(p) = 1 - F(p)
48

29/10/2009
EXAMPLE
Uniform probability distribution on a

competitor's bid
49

29/10/2009
EXAMPLE
Probability of winning the bid as a function

of price
50

29/10/2009
EXAMPLE
Bid-response function
We call (p) the bid-response function of this deal
For each deal, the bid-response function specifies the probability of
winning the deal as a function of our bid
The bid-response function is the customized-pricing analog of the priceresponse curve
Price-response curve: Total expected demand as a function of list price
Bid-response curve: Probability of winning an individual bid as a function
of price bid
For the example:
(p) = 2.8 p/5000

51

for $9,000 p $14,000

29/10/2009
EXAMPLE
Results
The price that maximizes expected profitability can be found by solving
Maximize 50 (2.8 p/5000) (p 10,000)
Solving for p gives p* = $12,000
At this price the probability of winning the bid is 2.8 12,000/5000 = 0.4
The margin per unit if the deal is won is $12,000 - $10,000 = $2,000
Expected total margin is 40% 50 $2,000 = $40,000
52

29/10/2009
EXAMPLE
Expected profitability as a function of bid

price
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29/10/2009
The customized pricing problem

Maximize (p) = (p) m(p)
where
(p) = expected contribution at price p

(p) = bid-response function
m(p) = deal contribution at price p
54

29/10/2009
Bid response
The most challenging part of optimizing customized prices is determining
an appropriate bid-response function
If we already have a bid-response function, finding the price that
maximizes expected contribution is relatively simple
How do we estimate the bid-response function?
Bottom-up modeling from our probability distributions on how we
believe our competitors will bid and the selection process of the buyer
Expert judgment, i.e. gather people that have knowledge of the deal
to derive the bid-response function
Statistical estimation based on historic patterns of wins and losses
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29/10/2009
Minimum information needed to estimate a

bid-response function
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29/10/2009
Wins = 1 and losses = 0
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Linear fit
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Examples of logit response curves
1
( p) =
1 + e ( a +bp )
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Logit bid-response curve fit by maximizing

log likelihood
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Conclusions
Estimating the bid-response function is the challenging part of
customized pricing
A variety of approaches can be used, but the logit function is quite
popular
It is easy to incorporate multiple dimensions in the bid-response function
using the multivariate logit function
There exists a range of sophisticated statistical estimation techniques for
practical applications belonging to the field of discrete choice methods
61

29/10/2009

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Basic price optimization - Part 2

DTU Management Engineering,

Revenue Management Session 04

Recap: the price-response function

Slope: change in demand divided by

DTU Management Engineering,

Demand decreases with

Price elasticity: percentage change

Revenue Management Session 04

Recap: willingness to pay

DTU Management Engineering,

ponents for total demand and

The price-response function and

which is nonpositive as required by the downward-sloping demand curve

DTU Management Engineering,

Revenue Management Session 04

Common price-response functions

DTU Management Engineering,

Revenue Management Session 04

Linear price-response function

, of the linear price-response function is:

The elasticity ranges from 0 at p = 0 and approaches infinity as p

DTU Management Engineering,

Revenue Management Session 04

Linear price-response function

The linear price-response

A linear price-response function.

DTU Management Engineering,

Revenue Management Session 04

Uniform willingness-to-pay distribution

A uniform willingness-to-pay distribution.

DTU Management Engineering,

Revenue Management Session 04

The constant-elasticity price-response

This results in the price-response function

where C > 0 is a parameter chosen such that d(1) = C.

However, such price-response functions do not meet the usual assumptions

DTU Management Engineering,

Revenue Management Session 04

Examples of constant-elasticity priceresponse functions

Constant-elasticity price-response functions with different elasticities.

DTU Management Engineering,

Revenue Management Session 04

Properties of the constant-elasticity pricefunction

The slope of the revenue function then is

Since d(p) > 0, the direction of the slope is determined by (1 ):

DTU Management Engineering,

Revenue Management Session 04

Revenue and price elasticity

Clearly, the constant-elasticity

< 1: Revenue increases with

Revenue as a function of price for the constant-elasticity price-response function.

DTU Management Engineering,

Revenue Management Session 04

Limitations of the linear and constantelasticity price-response functions

DTU Management Engineering,

Revenue Management Session 04