Abstract
Everyone knows that shopping involves choosing to go to one store or another. And consumers consider various factors in making that choice. What has interested the speaker over the years is how stores, or firms, can compete intelligently to influence that choice. In this talk the speaker will discuss what he encountered in his efforts to study competitive strategies of retailers. His studies extensively use the methods of game theory.
The speaker will present two essential ideas from game theory that influenced his approach to studying competitive strategies. And after sketching how earlier work on competitive pricing led him to exploring retailing using these ideas, he will turn to substantive issues of retailing. Most modern retailers carry hundreds if not thousands of products. So communicating the prices of all these products is a challenge. What exactly happens with communication strategies when stores are competing to attract customers? And how might this be related to other aspects of marketing such as pricing and service at the store? How might intelligent consumers process the communications from stores? How do competing stores use coupons and rebates to increase sales? And do loyalty or reward programs benefit stores in their competitive strategies? The speaker will conclude by raising issues that may become more relevant as retailing on the Internet becomes a greater force in our economy.
About the speaker
Ram C. Rao is Founders Professor and Professor of Marketing in the School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). He has been on the UTD faculty since 1983. He has previously taught at Queen’s University, Canada, Purdue University and University of Chicago. He has also been a visiting lecturer at Tsinghua University, People’s Republic of China; INSEAD, France, Indian Institute of Science, India; and more recently at the Indian School of Business and HKUST Business School.
Prof Rao’s research investigates how firms compete and how they should formulate competitive marketing strategies with emphasis on pricing. He has published numerous papers in leading marketing journals, and his research has received support from the US National Science Foundation as well as Nortel Networks.
He serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Marketing Research and Marketing Science and is past Area Editor of Marketing Science and Associate Editor, Journal of Business Economics and Statistics. He is currently the co-editor of the web-based marketing journal Review of Marketing Science and serves on the Advisory Boards of Quantitative Marketing and Economics, and Marketing Research Network.
Prof Rao teaches marketing in the masters programs and game theory in the doctoral program. He also teaches in the on-line program and executive MBA program of the UTD School of Management.
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