Pricing

Michael Kors isn't very happy with the excessive discounts department stores give on its products. CEO John Idol says that come February, the brand will no longer participate in family-and-friends sales or accept coupons for its products. Michael Kors plans to cut back on the amount of merchandise it ships to department stores in an…

Coach on Tuesday announced that it will shutter about 25 percent of its North American department store locations. Most of the locations tend to be low volume, according to the company, and the closings will be spread out in terms of geography. Coach will keep open its best-performing sites and avoid the stores that put its…

The results are in, and despite technical glitches, Amazon Prime Day proved even more successful for the company than last year, with worldwide orders rising 60 percent compared to 2015. Analysts estimated 1.5 million people signed up for Prime on July 12. Retailers knew Amazon.com would put its marketing weight behind its own manufactured holiday and…

Consumer attitudes toward supermarket food preparation are changing. A strong demand for gourmet cooking persists over traditional takeout options. According to an article on Forbes, this trend is creating an opportunity for grocers to deliver unique meal options while creating a learning environment for actual chefs. That’s right, more and more supermarkets are hiring experienced…

Target updated its point-of-sale cash register software and its coupon policy to make sure discounts are accurate at checkout.

Amazon.com celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2015 by creating “Prime Day,” a shopping “holiday” that offered Prime members an ongoing series of deals over the 24 hours of July 15. Although much of the news that day focused on disappointed Prime Day shoppers, Amazon quickly declared victory — and rightly so, from its perspective. Amazon…

Starbucks accidentally announced its annual price increase over the weekend due to a glitch in the company's new computer system. Due to the price increase, customers paid about 30 cents more on average for their beverages, two weeks before the price increase was to be implemented. This is the third year in a row the…

In a major shift for e-commerce, Amazon.com is quietly changing how it entices people to buy. The retailer built a reputation and hit $100 billion in annual revenue by offering deals. The first thing a visitor saw was a bargain: how much an item was reduced from its list price. Now, in many cases, Amazon has dropped…

Coming out soon in Marketing Science is a paper by researchers at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University titled, Minimum Advertised Pricing: Patterns of Violation in Competitive Retail Markets. In an exclusive interview with lead researcher Ayelet Israeli (now professor of business administration in the Harvard School of Business), Upstream Commerce learned that violations…

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