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The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies Research Seminar Optimal Pricing and Inventory Control Policy with QuantityBased Price Differentiation by Dr Miao SONG Assistant Professor Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering The University of Hong Kong Date: 6 January 2015 (Tuesday) Time: 10:30 am - 11:30 am Venue: M103, Li Ka Shing Tower The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Conducted in English) Abstract: A firm facing price dependent stochastic demand aims to maximize its total expected profit over a planning horizon. In addition to the regular unit selling price, the firm can utilize quantity discounts to increase sales. We refer to this dual-pricing strategy as quantity-based price differentiation. At the beginning of each period, the firm needs to make three decisions: replenish the inventory, set the unit selling price if the unit sales mode is deployed, and set the quantity-discount price if the quantity-sales mode is deployed (or the combination of the two modes of sales). We identify conditions under which the optimal inventory control policy and selling/pricing strategy is well structured. Remarkably, under a utility-based demand framework, these conditions can be unified by a simple regularity assumption that has long been used in the auction and mechanism design literature. Moreover, sharper structural results are yielded for the optimal selling strategy. We also examine the comparative advantage of quantity-based price differentiation with respect to model parameters. Our numerical study shows that substantial profit improvement can be gained as a result of shifting from uniform pricing to quantity-based pricing, especially when the product has a low unit ordering cost and high utility. Bio: Dr. Miao Song earned her PhD degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at the University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on operations research applications in supply chain management. She has published in top journals such as Management Science and Operations Research. Please email to [email protected] for enquiries. All are welcome!