Marketing Seminar (2019-22)

Topic: Price Promotions and Online Reviews

Speaker: Yiting Deng, Assistant Professor, UCL School of Management, University College London

Time: Wednesday, 20 Nov, 13:30-15:00

Location: Room K02, Guanghua Building 2

Abstract:

Price promotions increase sales, at least in the short term, but the effect of price promotions on consumers’ product evaluation is not well understood. We focus on the market for mobile apps, a category where price variation, including discounting to a zero price is common. We ask how price promotions affect the evaluation in reviews posted subsequently online. Our results suggest that during price promotions, consumers rate the product less favorably than before the price promotions. This effect is especially pronounced for price promotions to a zero price. We provide evidence suggesting that lower prices, and especially zero-prices, increase the likelihood that consumers with lower valuations will purchase the product. Notwithstanding the lower promoted price, the app still represents a bad fit to these consumers’ tastes. As a result of the mismatch between a consumer’s tastes and product characteristics, consumers who purchased the app during a promotion rate it less favorably.

Introduction:

Yiting Deng is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the UCL School of Management, University College London. Prior to joining UCL, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. Yiting received her PhD in Marketing and MS in Statistics from Duke University. She also holds Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Statistics and a Master’s degree in Economics from Peking University. She applies empirical modeling techniques on consumer choice and firm decision problems, with particular interests in digital marketing, advertising effectiveness, media consumption, and two-sided markets. Her research has been published inMarketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Economic Behavior&Organization, and Statistical Science.

Your participation is warmly welcomed!