I think matching could be like discounts / price promotions (i’d guess at ~ 50% this is happening); you’re just moving money around different timelines and having other negative effectives on your brand.
How do you square this with the experience of J.C. Penney, who, after eliminating sales and instead choosing to offer “everyday low prices”, experienced a 20% drop in sales? It’s certainly tempting to believe that discounts and other such unnecessary promotions don’t work, but it seems that sales do to some extent stimulate, well, sales.
Relatedly, when I worked in ad agencies I’d always tell my clients to avoid putting their products on discount. The research I’ve read shows they:
1. don’t impact long term sales
2. tend to just attract people who would’ve bought anyway (but at a lower price)
3. get people used to buying at a lower price
“a brand’s normal-price buyers are a major source of its volume from price promotions” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321247500_Buying_Brands_at_Both_Regular_Price_and_on_Promotion_over_Time
I think matching could be like discounts / price promotions (i’d guess at ~ 50% this is happening); you’re just moving money around different timelines and having other negative effectives on your brand.
How do you square this with the experience of J.C. Penney, who, after eliminating sales and instead choosing to offer “everyday low prices”, experienced a 20% drop in sales? It’s certainly tempting to believe that discounts and other such unnecessary promotions don’t work, but it seems that sales do to some extent stimulate, well, sales.
See https://hbr.org/2012/05/can-there-ever-be-a-fair-price.