Abstract:

In order to gain competitive advantage in the fierce market environment， retailers often adopt markdown strategy to attract consumers to buy. In fact， it is the frequent price cuts by retailers that lead to the emergence of strategic consumers， posing severe challenges to their pricing decision-making. Unlike myopic consumers who only focus on current purchase utility， strategic consumers can fully obtain product price information and future price trends， and will choose the optimal purchase behavior by comparing the utility levels obtained by purchasing products in the current and future periods.The existence of strategic customers brings severe challenges to enterprises' pricing decisions. Consumers can choose to buy products at lower prices by delaying their purchases. Considering the influence of consumer's strategic behavior， a continuous time consumer purchase decision-making model is constructed， the optimal decision-making of retailer's two-stage pricing and markdown timing is analyzed， and further the retailer's markdown timing is analyzed under the situation of inventory surplus and inventory shortage.It is indicated that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between retailer's profit and two-stage product pricing， and there is a unique price combination to maximize the retailer's profit. The increase of price in the regular period will stimulate consumers to choose to wait for purchase， and the increase of price in the markdown period will weaken consumers' patience for waiting to buy. In different situations， retailers can choose to postpone or advance the timing of markdown to achieve Pareto improvement. Considering the two scenarios of inventory surplus and inventory shortage， retailers can balance inventory by dynamically adjusting the markdown timing and meet the demand of all potential consumers under the condition of bearing a certain cost， which can solve the matching problem of product supply and demand， even achieve zero inventory or meet the needs of all potential consumers.Based on the above analyses， it is proposed that retailers need to fully grasp the behavioral laws of strategic consumers and set prices according to the needs of strategic consumers. Retailers can expand market demand by adopting markdown strategy， while training consumers to be more and more patient， it is necessary to take into account the inventory situation and determine the optimal markdown timing and two-period price. It can provide some meaningful reference for relevant studies and firms in practice.

Key words: strategic consumer, markdown timing, pricing strategy, inventory management, Pareto improvement