Volume 143, Number 1, 107-121, DOI: 10.1007/s10479-006-7375-0

Optimal normative policies for marketing of products with limited availability

Sanjeev Swami and Pankaj J. Khairnar

From the issue entitled "International Conference of OR for Development (ICORD 2002)"

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Abstract

We develop optimal normative policies for pricing and advertising of products with limited availability by including the traditional product diffusion parameters (Bass, 1969)–innovation and imitation, and the scarcity effects generated due to limited product availability (Swami and Khairnar, 2003). Using optimal control methodology, our pricing policy results suggest that a profit-maximizing firm gradually increases the price as the sales approach the product availability. The optimal normative advertising policy recommends gradually decreasing the expenditure on the awareness advertising and increasing the expenditure on the availability advertising as the product diffusion progresses. These results are illustrated with suitable numerical examples.

Keywords  Product diffusion models - Optimal control - Marketing policies

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