Abstract:

Through long-term purchase practice， consumers become more and more smart. They can rationally expect the price reduction trend of products， and choose the purchasing time according to the expected utilities of purchasing goods before and after the price reduction. When estimating the utilities of buying a product immediately and after waiting for a price reduction， consumers should consider not only the price and availability， but also the waiting cost of consumers. The waiting cost may be different for different consumers.Based on the rational expectation equilibrium method and newsboy model， considering the difference of consumers' waiting cost， consumers are divided into high waiting cost consumers， intermediate waiting cost consumers and zero waiting cost consumers. In view of the different proportions of these three consumers， a pricing decision model for retailers is constructed. The pricing decisions are analyzed and compared in three situations： pricing targets only high waiting cost consumers （myopic）（\mathrm{T}\mathrm{M} pricing）， pricing targets high waiting cost and intermediate waiting cost consumers （\mathrm{T}\mathrm{M}\xi pricing） and pricing targets all consumers （\mathrm{T}\mathrm{A} pricing）.It shows that when the　pricing strategy is adopted， the retailer's optimal profit increases with the proportion of high waiting cost consumers. When \mathrm{T}\mathrm{M}\xi pricing strategy is adopted， the retailer's optimal profit decreases with the proportion of zero waiting cost consumers. When \mathrm{T}\mathrm{A} pricing strategy is adopted， retailers have a fixed optimal profit. When the proportion of consumers with zero waiting cost is greater than a threshold， regardless of the types and proportions of other consumers， the \mathrm{T}\mathrm{A} pricing strategy should be adopted. The decision model is also applicable to situations where there are only two types of consumers in the market， myopic and strategic.Finally， the situation with normal sales period and price reduction sales period is discussed. In the case of two sales stages， the equilibrium price of retailers in the two sales stages is positively related to the waiting cost of consumers in these two sales stages. Other conclusions similar to the single sales stage can be drawn.

Key words: strategic consumer, waiting cost, pricing, newsvendor