infonet-economy

This work surveys decision support systems that use sales and shopping basket data to suggest regular and promotional price changes in order to improve profit and turnover in retailing (so-called retail revenue management [RRM] systems). Starting with a demonstration of the impact of pricing on profit, we critically assess the pricing methods currently used in retailing and from this basis show the potential for improvement using retail revenue management systems. Furthermore, we classify the different types of pricing problems and describe the methods that are used in retail revenue management. Finally, we discuss the pricing process of retail revenue management systems and report the benefits of such systems typically observed in practice.