C Narsimhan

A Price Discrimination Theory of Coupons Author(s): Chakravarthi Narasimhan Source: Marketing Science, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Spring, 1984), pp.
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MARKETING SCIENCE Vol. 3, No. 2, Spring 1984 Printed in U.S.A.
A PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS

CHAKRAVARTHI NARASIMHAN
Universityof Chicago
The objective of this paper is to analyze the consumer's decision in electing to use cents-off coupons distributed by manufacturers of consumer products. Arguing that the decision to use coupons is based on the tradeoff between costs of using coupons and the savings obtained, it is shown that coupons can serve as a price discrimination device to provide a lower price to a particular segment of consumers. Based on a price theoretic model, it is shown that the users of coupons are more price elastic than nonusers of coupons and that the opportunity cost of time and other household resource variables are determinant factors in consumers' decisions. Implications derived from the model are tested using diary panel data. (Price-Discrimination; Cents-Off Coupons; Theory Testing)
1. Introduction A cefrts-off coupon promises the consumer a reduced price on the next purchase of a specified product. The practice of offering a reduced price through such instruments is prevalent in the consumer goods industries, more noticeably in the frequently purchased nondurable products and service markets. Examples of such categories include: grocery products, meals in restaurants, hair cutting services, laundry and cleaning services, photographic supplies, film processing, etc. Cents-off coupons are distributed in the newspapers, magazines, by mail, in/on packages. The number.of coupons have grown by more than 500% in the last decade and the average face value has doubled in the same period. Thus, coupons are an important promotional mechanism. There are many interesting research issues in the study of cents-off coupons. The more important ones are: (i) Why do manufacturers offer such coupons? Why not reduce the price of the product at the retail outlet? (ii) Who are the more intense users of coupons if not all consumers? Which demographic variables have predictable impact on the usage? (iii) Why does the savings offered through coupons vary across brands and sizes? On the managerial side one would like to answer questions such as how to evaluate the profitability of couponing, how to determine the cents off value, what tradeoffs exist between distributing coupons in different media, etc. In this paper, we argue that one reason why a firm will offer coupons is to price discriminate between the more elastic and less elastic demanders. Hypotheses concerning the difference between users and nonusers of coupons in terms of observable demographic variables will be offered. And finally, hypotheses consistent with the
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Copyright ? 1984, The Institute of Management Sciences/Operations
0732-2399/84/0302/0128$01.25
Research Society of America
PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS
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model developed in this paper will be offered to explain systematic differences in cents-off values offered by different brands in a product category and different sizes within a brand. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In ?2, past literature in couponing and alternative explanation to the existence of coupons are examined. In ?3, the basic hypothesis of this paper is developed. ?4 contains a description of the consumer model; ?5 contains the empirical tests of the implications derived from the consumer model. ?6 outlines managerial implications from the theory and ?7 concludes the paper with a summary and directions for further work. 2. Background
Past research in marketing on coupons and their effects on consumers is rather scanty. Nielson (1965) discusses the market research aspects of coupons and argues that this could be a prime factor for the manufacturers to distribute coupons. Ward and Davis (1978) argue that coupons influence consumers through their redemptive value and their informational value (i.e., informing the consumers of the existence of the product). They construct a regression model with consumption as the dependent variable and price, income, savings given through coupons, and a host of demographic variables as independent variables. They break down the increase in consumption into two parts: a price effect and an informational effect. From the empirical estimates of the regression model, they show that both effects exist. Dodson, Tybout, and Sternthal (1978) examine the impact of retracting a deal on brand loyalty. Based on selfperception theory, they conclude that while media distributed coupons may encourage switching, once the coupons are retracted, the consumers who switched did not repurchase at the regular price. Precisely the opposite effects were encountered for in/on package coupons. Teel, Williams and Bearden (1980) conducted a survey of female heads of household to study the characteristics of coupon users. The focus was on characterizing the profile of coupon users who would try a new product with a coupon. They report, based on the survey results, that coupon users have significantly larger family sizes, larger incomes and are significantly younger than nonusers of coupons. Bearden, Teel and Williams (1981) report the results of another survey they did to study the relationship between the percentage price reduction and willingness to try a new brand among female grocery shoppers. They computed the percent of people who would buy the new product using coupons for different levels of price reduction. Such a relationship is obviously useful for planning purposes. Neslin and Shoemaker (1983) describe a computer based simulation model that can be used to calculate the profitability of couponing. Based on a decision calculus approach, the parameters of the model are estimated. More recently White (1983) and Levedahl (1983) have addressed the issue of the use of cents-off coupons. White argued that coupons can be a means to discriminate between those consumers who comparison shop and those who do not. The proportion of consumers who comparison shop is assumed to be exogenous to the model. She shows that as a result of entry and exit, the relative profit positions of the different firms in the industry are unaffected but the structure of price changes, viz., some consumers pay higher prices and some (those who use coupons) pay lower prices. Levedahl compares the price discrimination hypothesis (see below) with what he calls "multipart pricing"-charging a lower price for the first unit and higher price for additional units. (This definition is different from the definition of multipart pricing in the economics literature.) He uses the data derived from a panel supplied by NPD. For the paper towels category, the average full price with coupon (price paid plus the value of coupon) is significantly higher for all the national brands than the average price paid when there was no coupon. This is consistent with the price discrimination
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hypothesis and not the "multipart pricing" hypothesis. He further argues that recurrence of coupons periodically is consistent with the price discrimination hypothesis and not with the "multipart pricing" hypothesis. As can be seen from the above review, no one has explicitly modelled the consumers' usage of cents-off coupons and empirically tested any proposition. In this paper, we propose to advance a price discrimination hypothesis and offer some empirical support to this hypothesis. Before we do this, we review some alternative explanations. Coupons for Gathering Market Research Data. By coding the coupons for the media and geographic regions in which they are distributed, a manufacturer can gain valuable insights into the price sensitivity of different consumer segments. Further, he can learn about the pattern of redemption and plan the coupon drop more effectively and organize his cash flows. Coupons can also be used to test advertising copies. By a "split run test" wherein alternate copies of a single issue of a magazine carry different advertising copies, and by monitoring the redemption of coupons included in these advertisements, a manufacturer can ascertain the relative effectiveness of copy themes. Thus, the market research benefits of coupons cannot be ignored. Can this be an explanation of the incentive of the manufactureres to issue coupons? Not likely. Cents-off labels on packages are probably a less costly mechanism of offering a price cut since the manufacturer does not incur redemption costs paid to the retailer, cost of misredemption, etc. Further, this hypothesis cannot explain the variation in coupon usage across consumers nor does it prove useful in predicting the savings to be offered through coupons relative to competing brands. CouponsInduce Trials and Hence Repeat Purchases. Coupons represent a price cut to consumers. The consumer incurs a cost in trying a product whose value he is uncertain about. Therefore, if he can be compensated for this cost, at least partially, a trial may take place and this would increase the probability of future sales. The above hypothesis would therefore predict that over the brand's life the couponing intensity must gradually decrease since firms benefit from inducing an early trial. Now, there are many other alternative mechanisms available for inducing trial. Some of these are: Using cents-off labels, small sample sizes, trade promotions, etc. This hypothesis fails to explain why these alternative mechanisms are less efficient than cents-off coupons for inducing trial. Further and most importantly, the hypothesis has no prediction on the intensity of coupon usage across consumers. Note that the crucial question here is not why a price cut is given but rather why the price cut takes a particular form. In other words, given the cost of couponing, viz., cost for distributing coupons, redemption cost paid to retailers, clearing houses, etc., why does a firm choose this strategy as opposed to say, cents-off labels and advertising about this offer? The hypothesis proposed in this paper (see next section) is also consistent with the proposition that coupons can be used to induce trial. But unlike this hypothesis, the price discrimination hypothesis predicts why, in a positive sense, the intensity of usage of coupons is likely to differ across consumers. And finally, the trial-repeat purchase hypothesis does not have predictions on the cents-off to be offered through coupons and how the savings given should vary across brands and package sizes. This does not necessarily mean that the trial-repeat purchase hypothesis cannot explain some form of couponing. In product categories where the purchaser is not the consumer, coupons can serve as a reminder to the purchaser of the product's utility to the consuming person and thus coupons can serve to induce repeat purchase.' Pet
'One could argue that this statement would, in general, be true. The point that is being made here is that in the absence of self-evaluation of a product by the purchaser, an on/in pack coupon can influcence the nest purchase more heavily than in other product categories. Dodson et al.'s article seems to partially support this assertion.
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foods and ready to eat cereals are good examples of such a category and in/on package coupons is a major form of couponing in these categories. 3. Coupons as Price Discrimination Devices
The basic argument in the explanation offered in this paper is that to enjoy the savings from using coupons, the consumer incurs some cost and the decision to use coupons is made by trading off the savings obtained against the cost of using coupons. There are many costs that can be identified. These are the cost of organization (cost of organizer, time spent in periodically organizing the coupons, etc.), cost of looking through magazines, time spent in storing and retrieving the coupons, etc. The chief component of this cost is the cost of time. This cost will also be affected by other household resource variables like the education level of the housewife, the presence of children and the manner in which the household derives its income. For example, a housewife who is employed is bound to treat her time as more valuable than a nonworking housewife belonging to another household with identical income and other household resource variables.2 Similarly, the presence of children could have an impact on the cost imputed to the time available to the housewife. In general, as time becomes more and more of a scarce resource, the value attached to successive units is higher. Blattberg, Buesing, Peacock and Sen (1978), in their study on deal prone segments, use similar arguments to identify the consumers that are likely to be deal prone. They show that presence of children and the wife being employed have a negative impact on the ability to take advantage of deals, since this latter activity is time intensive. Now, assume for a moment that a household can buy one unit of a product using one coupon. Let c(n) be the cost function reflecting the cost of using n coupons. Let S be the savings obtained per coupon assumed constant. Therefore the optimal number of units the household will buy under this simple situation can be characterized by the following first order condition, viz.,
S = c'(n) (1)
where c'(.) is the marginal cost of using one coupon. If all households in the population face the same savings S (i.e., benefit) from coupons but differ in their cost function then it is easy to see from (1) that different households will be exhibiting different intensities of coupon usage.3 Those households for whom c'(n) > S for all n > 0 choose not to use coupons. Thus, given heterogeneity in the cost of using coupons across consumers, one should observe differing patterns of usage of coupons. The decision to use coupons is purely by self-selection and not due to any constraints imposed by the firm.4 Why is the firm interested in providing a price cut to those consumers with lower costs of usage? Now suppose it can be established that the consumers with lower costs are more price elastic than those who do not use coupons, it then follows that the firm is selling the same product at a lower price to the more elastic consumers relative to the segment who have higher costs (and less elastic demand). It is in this sense that coupons behave as price discrimination devices and that such a mechanism is profit maximizing has been well established in the price theory literature (see, for example, Becker 1971, pp. 102-105). One important point regarding the formation of the
2Given a fixed number of hours per day, a working woman has less time to do household activities than a nonworking woman ceteris paribus. Similar arguments apply to the next two assertions as well. 3We also assume that all consumers know and expect to receive savings S from a coupon. 4Since some consumers acting in their self-interest choose not to use coupons, the question of arbitrage does not arise. That is, the manufacturer need not take any explicit action to isolate the segments.
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segments is worth emphasizing here. The segments are formed on the basis of rational self-selection and not on the basis of preferences. That is, the differences in demand elasticities (this is rigorously established in the next section) is driven by opportunity cost differences and not due to taste differences. The differences between the price discrimination hypothesis and trial-repeat purchase hypothesis are the following. If firms want to induce trial through coupons, firms would like to limit the use of coupons only on the first unit bought (for example, a "mail-in refund" program can be used where it is possible to restrict the refund to one per household.) Whereas under the price discrimination hypothesis the firm does not have an incentive to restrict such use. The recurring use of coupons seems to be consistent with price discrimination hypothesis and inconsistent with trial-repeat hypothesis (Levedahl 1983). Further, Dodson, Tybout and Sternthal (1978) conclude that at least as far as media distributed coupons are concerned, cents-off coupons undermined repeat purchases. If firms know this, it is not clear why they continue to coupon. Secondly, if consumers are uncertain about a product, one would expect them to use coupons on small sizes, since it involves less outlay and, consequently, firms to restrict coupons to only small sizes (thereby restricting the use of coupons by regular users of the product who may be buying larger sizes). We do not observe this in practice.5 In this paper, evidence will be presented that is consistent with the price discrimination hypothesis. Some of this evidence may be consistent with other theories. Clearly, further tests are needed to discriminate between competing hypotheses. 4. Model of Consumer Behavior
In this section a formal model of the consumer is presented. The model's implications regarding coupon usage, differences in elasticities between users and nonusers, and implications for couponing across sizes and across different brands of a product class are derived. As detailed in the previous section, it is assumed that a consumer trades off the savings he/she obtains from a coupon with the cost of using a coupon. The consumer's decision on using coupons is analyzed using a simple price-theoretic framework. Assumptions A . The consumer maximizes a well-defined utility function (for other assumptions on the nature of this utility function see below), defined over two goods denoted as X and L. The good X is available for purchase with coupon, and L can represent a composite good or leisure.6 A2. The consumer knows the price of good X with certainty and he also knows the quality of the product. That is, we assume a world of costless information on prices and quality. A3. If the consumer decides to buy X with a coupon, he uses one coupon for one unit of the product and obtains a savings of S. This assumes that products are available in one "size" only. While this is obviously restrictive, it simplifies the treatment. We will return to the issue of sizes later. A4. The utility function U (defined over X and L) is continuous, twice-differentiable and the Hessian of U is negative definite. That is, Uxx, ULL < 0 and Uxx ULL - UXL
5This is based on anecdoctal evidence. Further, in the empirical testing section, we will see that brands coupon for different sizes (see Table 3). 6This is essentially a mathematical simplification. Even though a consumer purchases a number of goods in the economy, to study the price effects on one good, one can conveniently combine the all other goods in one category and classify this as a composite good.
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> 0 where the subscripts refer to the variables with respect to which the partial derivative of U is considered. A5. Both X and L are "normal" goods, i.e., as income increases holding everything else constant, the consumer consumes more of X and L. Assumptions A4 and A5 are made for tractability. A5 is a strong sufficient (not necessary) condition to assure that the demand curves are sloping downwards. Mathematical Notation Let: PI = price of one unit of X, P2 = price of one unit of L, Xl = quantity of X bought with coupon, S = saving/unit of the quantity bought from using a coupon, H = number of hours the consumer spends in the labor market, ti = time input into the consumption of X, t2 = time input for using one coupon, A = nonwage income, w(H) = a scaling function transforming the hours worked, H, into "effective" number of hours, a = wage rate, T= total number of hours available to the consumer in some particular time horizon. Thus, aw(H) is the total income derived from the labor market. This representation is chosen for mathematical simplicity so that it is easy to analyze the behavior of consumers differing in their wage income by looking at changes in a. A6. aw/aH > 0 and a2w/aH2 < 0. In other words, by spending more hours in the labor market the consumer increases his wage income, but at a decreasing rate. This assumption relies on the fact that the consumer is likely to exhaust more beneficial (to him) sources of employment first before turning to less income yielding opportunities. A7. All third-order derivatives of U and w are zero. This assumption is made for mathematical tractability. The consumer model can be represented by the following nonlinear constrained maximization problem: Max s.t. U(X,L) aw(H) + A = P,X - SX, + P2L, (b) T= tlX + t2X, + L + H, (c) X > X,, (d) X, > 0. (a)
The thrust of the modelling here is to see how (i) Xl, the quantity bought using coupons, varies across consumers holding everything else constant and (ii) how the price elasticity of demand varies across consumers using coupons with different intensity. That is, we are interested in the signs of dX*/aa and where arpl(X*)/aa is the of demand. Narasimhan has shown that7 elasticity (1982) rp,(X*)
aX?/aa < 0,
arnl(x*)/aa
(3)
(4)
> 0.
Now since aw' in this model captures the opportunity cost of the marginal unit of time,
7A sketch of the proof of (3) and (4) is available from the author upon request.
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the first inequality implies that as the opportunity cost of time increases, the intensity of coupon usage decreases. The second inequality implies that the more intense users of coupons (those with a lower a) are more price elastic ('qp,(x) is a negative number) than the less intense users of coupons. Other Implications Couponing Across Brands. Consider a product class with a number of brands differentiated on some set of characteristics. To simplify, let R denote a composite characteristic on which brands are differentiated. The brands in this product class are sold at different prices, and let P,(R) represent the market price function, which is assumed to be well-defined continuous and twice differentiable over the relevant range of analysis. Since different brands will be couponed at different values, let S(R) represent the savings per coupon offered by different brands. The consumer model under this situation can be formulated as: Max s.t. U(X,L,R) (a) (b) (c) (d) aw(H)+ A = XPI(R)+ P2L - S(R)X,, T= tlX + t2X + L + H, X > X,, X 0O.
It is easy to see that this framework is very similar to Rosen's (1974, p. 40) "extended" model. As discussed by Rosen (1974), it is possible to derive a 0 function which traces out indifference curves in the P - R plane describing the price the consumer is willing to pay for various values of R, holding his income and utility level constant. The optimum R the consumer selects is obtained at the tangency of the P(R) function and the indifference curves described by the 0 function. Far less can be said in this case than in the conventional utility maximization model. However, this model has some very important contributions, such as describing the relevance of the market price function, the location of consumers and producers at various points in the characteristic spectrum, and the formulation of market segments. Rosen also established that assuming the characteristics are normal (i.e., higher-income consumers demand larger amounts of the characteristics), on the average higherincome consumers will be consuming brands with higher levels of R or which are priced higher. Of course, taste differences could, to the extent it is the more dominating force, lessen the above effect. Since it is hard to theorize on the variation of tastes, this effect will be ignored. Therefore, holding nonwage income constant, one would expect consumers with higher wage rates or opportunity costs of time to be located at higher levels of R in the characteristic spectrum or consuming higher-priced brands. Thus, if the brands coupon at different values, the higher-priced brands on average will coupon at higher values. This effect is reinforced by the following reasoning as well. In Figure 1, the choice of a consumer selecting a brand (a particular value of R) is illustrated. P(R) describes the market price function; i.e., the price at which brands with differing R sell. 0(U, R, Y) describes the price a consumer is willing to pay for different R, holding is utility (U) and income (Y) fixed. The consumer selects the brand Ro paying price PO.Consider two other brands R1 and R2 priced at P1 and P2 such that P2 > Pl > PO.Now the 0 function which describes the consumers' tradeoff of R against price is a concave function of R (see Rosen 1974). Therefore, if the higher-priced brands P, and P2 were to coupon so as to make the consumer buying Ro to buy their brand, they have to offer a net savings of 8, and 82, respectively, at which the consumer would be just about indifferent between Ro or switching to one of the higher-priced brands. From Figure 1, it is clear that 82 > 86 or that the net savings
135
P(R)
p2 P! . / e (R,U,Y)
PO -
/- -
-- - -
- -
-- -
- --? -
61
p0
R'
R0
R1
1. Consumer Tradeoffs and Couponing Across Brands. FIGURE
from the higher-priced brand (P2, R2) is greater than the net savings from a lowerpriced brand (P,, R,). Since the marginal cost for using coupons is assumed to be the same regardless of which brand's coupon the consumer uses, this would imply that the higher-priced brand should offer higher savings through coupons than a lower-priced brand. What drives this implication is that the 0 function is concave and the market price function P(R) is convex. In Figure 1, another brand (P', R') is shown. This brand is priced lower than the brand the consumer is currently buying; i.e., (P, Ro). It appears as though it could offer a higher savings equal to 82, say, to make the consumer buying (PO,RO)to buy its brand. However, given our assertion that consumers buying (P', R') on the average have a lower opportunity cost of time, such a move would lead to enormous "leakage" between the two consumer segments; i.e., the brand (P', R') cannot prevent its present consumers from buying its product with a coupon. This may inhibit such "large" couponing (in terms of value offered) by relatively lower-priced brands. Thus, the implication derivable from the hypothesis proposed is that, on the average, higher-priced brands will offer larger savings through coupons than lower-priced brands.8 CouponingAcross Sizes. Until now it was assumed that the consumer buys one unit through a coupon, no more or no less. However, a manufacturer may issue a coupon for different sizes of the same product, offering different absolute discounts (15? off a 12-oz. box and 254 off on a 24-oz. box). Consider one particular brand and two different sizes: L (large) and S (small). For expositional convenience, assume the large box is twice the size of the small box. Let C be the marginal cost for collecting and using a coupon, assumed to be constant. To remove price effects, assume that the price per unit is the same forL and S. In other words, if the small size sells for Ps and the large size for PL, then PL = 2Ps. Now, if the manufacturer offers coupons both for large and small sizes with savings SL and Ss, then SL must be greater than Ss since otherwise no one would buy the large size (remember, the price per unit is the same). However, in equilibrium to prevent arbitrage, the net benefit from using a coupon on the large size and using two coupons to buy two small sizes must be the same: Net benefit from buying large size = (SL - C).
8The argument presented above is somewhat incomplete. We only considered the demand side effects and thus, it is only a partial equilibrium analysis. One should establish why in equilibrium the firm is interested in offering coupons in the manner argued above by "closing" the market. This, however, is beyond the scope of this paper.
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CHAKRAVARTHI
NARASIMHAN
Net benefit from buying two small sizes = 2(Ss - C). Therefore,
SL-C=2Ss-2C SL < 2Ss (C > 0), or SL=2Ss-C implying i.e.,
SL/2 < S .
(5)
Since the definition of a unit of a product is rather arbitrary if one treats the small size as a unit, (5) implies that the savings per unit on a large size box must be smaller than the savings per unit on a smaller size box. Note that the above result is not affected by the assumption that C is a constant or by the assumption that L = 2S. In the next section, the following implications that are described above will be empirically tested. (i) The users of coupons have a more elastic demand than the nonusers; (ii) The intensity of usage of coupons is inversely related to opportunity cost of time; (iii) Within a product class, the price of a brand and the savings offered through coupons will be positively correlated (iv) Across different sizes of a brand, the savings per unit of the product bought will be inversely related to the size. 5. EmpiricalAnalysis
In this section the implications derived from the consumer model are tested with diary panel data. The panel contains purchase records of about 1,000 consumers in 20 product categories. 1. Testing Differences in Demand Elasticities. A key implication of the consumer model described in ?4 was that there should be a systematic difference in demand elasticities between users and nonusers. More specifically, it was shown (see (4)) that the users of coupons are more price elastic than nonusers of coupons. The null hypothesis, then, is that users of coupons are more price elastic than nonusers of coupons. To test this hypothesis, it is necessary to estimate demand equations for "users" and "nonusers" separately and compare their elasticities. This brings up the definition of a "user" of coupons. This is an empirical question and was resolved in a simple and straightforward manner. A user was defined as one who made at least one purchase with a coupon. This is a conservative definition and would bias the test (to be described below) towards rejecting the null hypothesis:9 Ln( QTY,) = a,Ln(PRICE,) + a2Ln(INCOME,) + a3Ln(FAMSIZ,)
+ a4Ln(EDUFEM ) + caLn(FEMEMP, where: ) (6)
+ a6Ln(A GEFEM, ) + Ec
QTYi = Annual quantity purchased by the ith household; PRICEi = Average price paid by the ith household; INCOME, = Annual income of the ith household; FAMSIZ, = Number of members in the ith household; EDUFEMi = Educational level of the female head of the ith household; AGEFEM, = Age of the female head of the ith household; Ei= A disturbance term, assumed to be independent and identically distributed, satisfying the usual properties.
91f consumers who are not regular users of coupons are considered as users, then the price elasticity will be lower than it would be if the null hypothesis were true. Thus, this minimizes the chances of finding a greater elasticity for the users of coupons, making the test conservative.
PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS TABLE I Results of Regressionto Test Differences in Demand Elasticities Between Users and Nonusers of Coupons Product Toilet Tissues Paper Towels Stuffing/Dressing Hair Coloring Hair Spray Shampoo Cooking/Salad Oil Ready to Eat Cereal Dog Foodc Dry Mix Dinners Bars and Squares Cake Mix Cat Food' Frozen Entrees Gelatin Spaghetti Sauces Creme Rinse/ Conditioners Soups Other Mixes Hot Dogs N 979 932 434 205 450 834 946 952 432 647 247 886 329 715 773 619 493 R2 0.21 0.09 0.15 0.09 0.13 0.37 0.21 0.29 0.42 0.24 0.14 0.18 0.21 0.16 0.23 0.48 0.34 - 0.596 -0.518 - 0.711 - 0.455 -0.0648 -0.838 - 1.221 - 1.577 - 1.498 -0.876 0.546 - 0.210 -0.485 -0.601 - 0.971 - 1.653 -0.824 - 1.052 - 0.958 -0.585 Price
(-5.35)b
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DPR - 0.060 (-4.66) 0.062 (-0.22) - 0.245 (-5.42) 0.032 (0.80) -0.202 (-2.74) - 0.200 (-5.60) -0.099 (-5.29) 0.856 (2.28) 0.63 (2.64) -0.210 (-6.23) - 0.348 (-5.35) -0.219 (-10.71) -0.642 (-3.96) -0.346 (-8.46) - 0.278 (-8.57) - 0.161 (-4.88) - 0.295 (-4.60) - 0.165 - 0.244 - 0.182 (-8.73) (-9.13) (-6.20)
Income 0.009 0.163 0.077 0.166 -0.003 0.256 0.129 0.22 0.202 -0.217 -0.123 -0.153 0.235 -0.044 -0.067 0.045 0.202 (0.27) (1.96) (1.18) (1.65) (-0.04) (4.96) (-2.64) (-2.91) (2.45) (-3.04) (-1.06) (-2.82) (2.07) (-0.59) (-1.09) (0.60) (2.62)
(-3.18) (-5.50) (-2.70) (-7.13) (-16.02) (-9.85) (-5.96) (-9.69) (-9.42) (2.16) (-1.35) (-2.13) (-5.30) (-11.05) (-20.94) (-12.44) (-15.27) (-9.68) (-4.08)
959 0.30 596 0.22 884 0.20
- 0.027 (-8.73) -0.159 (-2.60) -0.162 (-2.94)
aDPR is 0 for nonusers and equals price for users. bFigures in parentheses are t-values. 'For dog food and cat food, family size was replaced by number of dogs and number of cats respectively.
The above functional form was used since we are primarily interested in testing differences in demand elasticities. The coefficients in a log-log model directly yield the estimates of elasticities of the dependent variable with respect to the independent variable. In equation (6), FAMSIZ is included since consumption will be affected by the number of members in a household. EDUFEM, FEMEMP and ADEFEM are included to control for "taste" differences across households. The model specified by equation (6) was estimated at the product category level for the user and nonuser segment respectively. The null hypothesis that coefficients of all variables but prices were equal across the segments was not rejected (at the 0.05 level) in all but the following four categories: paper towels, ready to eat cereals, dog food and cat food. Thus, except for the above four, for the rest of the product categories, the estimation was done by pooling the two segments together and adding an extra price term as follows: DPR, = a7[8iLn(PRICE)] where 8; takes on a value of 1 if the ith household is a coupon user and 0 otherwise. For the four categories, where the homogeneity test was rejected, the individual constraints were tested and only those that could not be rejected were imposed and the estimation was done including the extra price term. nonusers of coupons and (a, + a7) is the estimate of the price elasticity of the users of coupons. Since the null hypothesis is that users are more price elastic than nonusers,
In the above regression, note that a, is the estimate of the price elasticity of the
the statistical test is H : a7, < 0. The results of this estimation are summarized in Table 1 for 19 product categories. For expositional purposes only the price and income coefficients are listed. It is seen from this table that the hypothesis that users of coupons are more price elastic cannot be rejected in most of the product categories.
138
From Table 1 we see that in the case of the following product categories: paper towels, hair coloring, ready to eat cereals and dog food, the null hypothesis was rejected. There apparently does not seem to be much commonality between these. Ready to eat cereals and dog food are categories where in/on pack coupons is a dominant force.10 But this is true in the case of cat food also in which the null hypothesis could not be rejected. Overall, we could say that the results in general confirm that users of coupons are more price elastic than nonusers. Testing the Intensity of Usage of CouponsAcross Consumers section that w 0 (see eon tha X where l sctn X is i the Recall from t last (3)) (e equation ( quantity bought using coupons and a is the wage rate to reflect the opportunity cost of time. In testing this relationship we have to model the relationship between X* and variables that are likely to affect the opportunity cost of time. We first discuss the selection of variables, the regression model and finally present the results. Selection of Variables. The dependent variable to test the above implications is the quantity bought using coupons. One of the independent variables selected is the total quantity bought in this product category. The reason for this is the following: in the theoretical development, consumption was modelled only as a function of price and income. But households can vary in their consumption due to other factors such as the number of members in a household and of course due to taste differences. The households with greater consumption in the product class are more often in the market and can consequently take advantage of the coupon offerings more easily." In fact, a simple t test of the means of quantity bought between user and nonuser segment revealed that the users of coupons have a significantly higher average consumption than nonusers of coupons. The other independent variables are those that capture the opportunity cost of time. In deciding on these variables, the following issues have to be considered. These are (i) whether both husband and wife are employed or whether only one is employed, (ii) the educational level of the female head of the household, and (iii) the presence of children. The reason is that the above variables may affect the intensity of coupon usage either in terms of the levels or in the responsiveness of the household to a change in any of these variables. For example, it was argued in an earlier section that a housewife who works is bound to treat her time as more valuable than another with the same income from her husband. The educational level will affect the "efficiency" of the housewife in organizing her time. The presence of children will put additional strain on the housewife's time and will consequently be reflected on the opportunity cost of time of the housewife. All these assumptions are consistent with Blattberg et al.'s (1978) work on deal prone consumers. To carry out the test, the sample was divided into three groups as follows: (i) no male head of the household, (ii) married couple, wife not employed and (iii) married couple, wife employed. In selecting the independent variables the presence of children and the educational status of the housewife are relevant for all three groups. The employment status of the female head is relevant only for the first and third group. Income is appropriate only for the first group since this is the group where the housewife is the only source of income. For the second group, income is not appropriate since it does not reflect the housewife's opportunity cost of time. Similar
'?The in/on pack coupon purchases as a percentage of total purchases (deal purchases) for ready to eat cereals, dog food and cat food were 5.55 (20.31), 6.40 (25.31), and 4.69 (17.74), respectively. These were among the highest of all the categories in the panel data. "For example, if a household buys the product regularly, the housewife is more likely to remember to take the coupons for redemption. In general, the cost of using the coupon is likely to be less the more frequently one buys the product (higher consumption rates), since many cost components associated with storing, retrieval, redemption of coupons, etc. are going to be less because of better organization.
2.
139
reasoning holds for the third group since the household income overstates the income of the wife. For the second group, two dummy variables were selected to control for the husband's occupation status. The reason for controlling this is because it was felt that the husband's occupational status will have a bearing on the wife's opportunity cost of time. For example, an executive's wife may have to allocate a portion of her time to activities (party going, office organizations, etc.) which may be specific to her husband's occupational status. Thus, in estimating across households with differing occupational status of the male head of the household, controlling for this aspect is necessary. The two dummies were labelled OCC1 and OCC2. OCC1 takes on a value 1 if the husband is a professional, proprietor, manager or farm owner. OCC2 takes on a value I if the male head of the household has one of the following job classifications: clerical, sales, skilled foreman, unskilled operator, private household worker, service worker. The omitted category is retired, unemployed students, laborers and those in military service. Having selected the independent variables, the next task was to select the functional form. Since the price theoretic model does not prove useful in selecting a functional form it was decided to choose a functional form that fits best among some commonly used relationships. A multiplicative model is ruled out since the dependent variable takes on a value of 0 for nonusers. A semilog form where the independent variables were transformed to their logarithms did not improve over a simple linear model. Finally, it was decided to use the squared values of independent variables and retain only those that improved the R2. This was determined by the traditional F test for adding variables and an F value of greater than I was the critical level.12In order that the significance levels should not be overstated, the experimentation with different functional forms was done with one product category (toilet tissue) and the functional form that fit the data best was used for all other product categories. The functional form selected was: CUPUNTi = ao + a L(INCOME,) + a2(INCOME,)2+ a3(EDUFEM,) + a4(FEMEMP, ) + a5( QTY,) + a6( QTY, )2 + aT(DUMCHD ) + a8OCC 1 + aO9CC2i + c, where (7)
CUPUNT, is the quantity bought using coupons by the ith household, DUMCHDi is a dummy that takes on the value i if the ith household has no children below 18, 0 otherwise. Note that in the above model, FEMEMP takes on the value 0 if the household belongs to group (ii) (married couple, wife not unemployed), INCOME takes on the value of 0 for groups (ii) and (iii) (both employed) and OCCI and OCC2 have meaning only for group (ii). Finally, one has to ascertain whether the groups are homogeneous in their responses to the common variables: EDUFEM, DUMCHD, FEMEMP, QTY, QTY2. The model as given by (7) was estimated by assuming homogeneity of response for these common variables. Where the null hypothesis of homogeneity was rejected, the individual variables were examined and only those constraints that were appropriate were imposed. The results of the estimation for different product categories are given in Table 2. The coefficients of only these variables that are tested are given in the table. The null hypothesis is that the usage is negatively affected by income and employment hours of the female and positively influenced by the absence of children and educational level of the housewife. Thus the null hypothesis a1,a2, a4 < 0 and
a3, a7 > 0. '2An F value of greater than 1 implies that the adjusted R2 is increasing. See Maddala (1977, Chapter 8).
TABLE 2 Test of Intensity of Coupon Usage Product Toilet Tissues Paper Towels Stuffing/Dressing Hair Coloring Shampoo Cooking/Salad Oil N R2 Income 8.2 x 10-3 (2.54) 0.0001 (0.57) 0.0002 (0.55) - 8.67 x 107 (- 1.88) -4.9 x 10-9 (-0.97) 0.001 (0.65) 0.0665 (0.76) 0.039 (1.03) 1.6 x 104 (0.15) 2.2 x 104 (0.24) Income2 - 2.58 x 10-7 (-2.18) - 3.89 x 10-3 (-0.52) - 4.55 x 10-9 (-0.45) 1.86 x 10-1 (1.58) 1.43 x 108 (0.70) - 6.36 x 10-8 (-1.05) - 2.91 x 10-7 (-1.12) - 1.5 x 10-5 (-1.27) 2.68 x 10-9 (0.09) - 4.82 x 10-9 ( - 0.16)
Ia
EDUFEM I
-C
III
979 0.32 933 0.43 434 0.20 205 0.12 845 0.18 946 0.27
Ready to Eat Cereal 952 0.55 Dog Food Dry Mix Dinners Bars and Squares 492 0.34 648 0.23 247 0.33
8.43 (2.80)b 0.67 (3.30) 0.51 (1.49) 0.0007 (1.83) 0.98 (2.27) 3.25 (2.04) 23.3 (1.18) 100.67 (2.83) - 0.62 (-0.22) 0.07 (-0.05)
0.0007 (1.83) -5.01 (0.83) 0.39 (0.44) -0.0006 (-1.23)
18.29 (2.60)
1.68 (1.69)
9.24 (1.48 0.31 (0.21 0.90 (1.33 0.00 (0.03 0.16 (0.18 1.87 (0.58 17.26 (1.76 87.73 (1.30 3.06 (2.31 1.93 ( - 0.79
Cake Mix Cat Food Frozen Entrees Gelatin Spaghetti Sauces Creme Rinse Conditioners Soups Other Mixes Hot Dogs
886 0.50 328 0.43 715 0.18 774 0.28 620 0.22 499 0.21 959 0.17 596 0.33 885 0.20
0.008 (1.88) 0.008 (0.49) 0.005 (2.31) 4.5 x 10-5 (0.06) - 0.0003 (-0.14) 0.0002 (0.50) 0.0016 (1.27) 0.003 (1.65) 0.0037 (2.34)
- 1.61 x 10-7 (-1.18)

-7.90x 10-7
(-1.40) - 7.9 x 10-8 (-0.91)

- 4.07 x 10-9
(-0.17) 1.67 x 10-8 (0.25) -6.8 x 10-9 (-0.38) -4.72 x 10-8 (-0.92) - 5.55 10-8 (-1.12) - 9.47 x 10-8 (-2.07)
9.50 (0.89) 8.07 (0.42) 1.35 (0.77) 0.65 (1.41) 5.25 (1.25) 1.39 (3.46) - 1.49 (1.14) - 1.05 (-0.34) - 0.91 (-0.33)
4.11 (1.25)
0.50 (0.32)
0.32 (0.40) 0.24 (0.20)
8.39 - 10.4 (2.29) (0.60 - -31.27 (-0.16) - -1.76 (-0.48) - -0.83 (0.22 4.1 4.21 (1.59 (2.74) ((.1 (0.17 5.39 (1.99 3.34 4.63 (2.08 (2.66) 2.33 2.05 (1.69) (1.09
aI and III refer to the following groups respectively: Household with no malehead, household with female not e bFigures in parentheses are t-values. 'A "-" means that the hypothesis of homogeneity of response across groups could not be rejected and consequ variable. The critical value of t (for large degrees of freedom) for a one-tailed test is 1.29 at 0.10 level of significan
142
Discussion. Examination of Table 2 reveals that the income effect is nonlinear. In all product categories a1 and a2 have different signs. Only in three product categories both are significant. In general, the signs of the coefficient seem to suggest that usage of coupons tends to increase with income first and after some critical income level seems to fall as predicted by the theoretical model. For example, this critical income level is $16,206 for toilet tissue. But the lack of significance of the income coefficient is somewhat disappointing. The coefficient of FEMEMP has the wrong sign in three product categories for both groups. For group one only in the case of one product category (hair coloring) and for group three only in one category (frozen entree). In nine of the 19 product categories, the coefficients are significantly negative. The coefficient of EDUFEM in general has the correct sign. Only six out of 31 estimates have the wrong sign (none significant) and 16 are significantly positive. The coefficient of DUMCHD has the correct sign in 20 out of 27 different estimates and 13 of them are significantly positive. Looking across at the three demographic groups, the model seems to predict best for the third group (both husband and wife employed). This is probably understandable given the greater time constraint a working couple will face in general than other households, ceteris paribus. Overall, one can say that the evidence presented here is strangely suggestive but in terms of statistical significance of the variables examined, only moderately supportive of the hypothesis proposed in this paper. In evaluating these results, we have to consider the possibility of whether the assumptions underlying the model are too restrictive to yield meaningful results. Two assumptions are particularly restrictive. These are: (i) only one couponed product was available, and (ii) there are no supply side constraints, i.e., coupons are freely available if one is willing to put in the effort to clip and redeem them. When the household faces coupons from many product categories, it is not going to spend the same amount of effort in each category. Frequency of purchase and the expenditure in the product category are some important determinants.13 The QTY variable used in (7) partially captures this but it is difficult to judge how well the variation in coupon usage across product categories is captured by this variable. Given panel data, it is impossible to check, for example, whether condition (ii) above was satisfied. If there had been a systematic difference in the distribution of coupons across demographic regions (for example, due to differences in product availability across regions), assumption (ii) above is very restrictive. Again it is hard to speculate on the effect of this violation on the results. Testing CouponingAcross Brands and Sizes In this model, predictions regarding couponing across brands in a product class and across sizes within a brand are tested. The predictions were (1) higher priced brands should offer higher savings per unit through coupons, and (2) across sizes, the savings per unit must be negatively correlated with the size of the package. To test these implications, only coupons from newspapers, magazines, mail and from prior purchases are considered. Since coupons used in conjunction with other deals would reflect savings more than the actual value mentioned on the coupon, such purchases were deleted. Within each product category, a model relating the savings per unit, the price per unit and the package size were estimated. The general model was 3. S, = f(P,,Z,) where (8)
13Among the 19 product categories in the panel, the number of product categories in which at least one coupon purchase was made by a typical household was 6.13.
143
S, = savings/unit for thejth size of the ith brand, Pi = price/unit for the jth size of the ith brand, Zj = package size for the jth size of the ith brand. For each brand and size, the price and savings obtained were averaged across consumers yielding one observation per brand per size. The above model was estimated by specifying different functional forms for "f." Specifically, the following were chosen. Model I. Linear: S,j = ao + a1P . + a2j + ci. Model II. Log-Log: Ln(S) = a0 + a,Ln(P) + a2Ln(z,) + rc. Model III. Semilog: S,j = a0 + acPij + a2Ln(z.) + ei. Model IV. Ln(S,j) = ao + aiP. + a2z,C+ Ei. In all models, the a priori predictions were ae > 0 and a2 < 0. The four models differ in their representation of the curvature properties of f (see equation (8)) with respect to P, and z,. Model I assumes that the relationship is linear. Model II uses a constant elasticity function implying that a percentage change in the savings per unit for one percent change in price (or the size) is constant. In terms of
TABLE 3 Price-Regressions Resultsfor the Model = ao + a,P,i + Ln(Si,) - d.1 a2Size,i I I Product Toilet Tissues Paper Towels Stuffing/Dressing Shampoo Cooking/Salad Oil Ready to Eat Cereal Dog Food Dry Mix Dinners Bars and Squares Cake Mix Cat Food Frozen Entrees Gelatin Spaghetti Sauces Creme Rinse/ Conditioners Soups Other Mixes N 51 74 24 70 79 196 132 71 13 149 57 191 72 65 25 182 57 R2 0.44 0.51 0.60 0.58 0.29 0.55 0.48 0.72 0.38a 0.07 0.65 0.30 0.40 0.55 0.63 0.81 0.42 Price 27.40 (5.22) - 0.1553 (- 2.68) - 40.34 (-0.99) 2.625 (4.03) 2.33 (1.06) 7.248 (5.40) 21.771 (5.49) 65.52 (9.41) -5.167 (-0.08) - 44.37 (-1.46) 30.626 (5.87) 36.51 (4.37) 33.296 (5.56) 8.047 (4.29) 1.47 (2.20) 48.57 (13.78) 105.42 (2.14) Size 6.86 x 10-5 (0.44) - 0.0096 (-5.94)
- 0.0001
(-4.85) - 0.0008 (-4.39)

- 0.0001
(-3.92) - 0.0005 (-7.63) 10-5 -2.09x (-6.33) -4.03 x 10-5 (-3.24) - 0.0002 (-1.71) -2.48 x 10-5 (-3.22) -6.65 x 10-5 (-4.65) - 3.19 x 10-5 (-6.37) -8.13 x 10-5 (-2.37) - 0.0003 (-3.39) - 0.0006 (1.68) -7.7 x 10-5 (-9.27) -2.44 x 10-5 (-4.55)
aThe regression was not overall significant at the 0.05 level.
144
TABLE 4
Summary of RegressionsAcross Brands and Sizes Price + Model I Si = a0 + a1Price/, + a2Sizej II Ln(S,) = ao + alLn(Price,/) + a2Ln(Size,) III S/ = ao + a,Price,, + a2Ln(Size/j) IV Ln(S) = a0 + aIPricel + a2Size, Number of Cases 14 (0.82) 12 (0.71) 13 (0.76) 14 (0.82) Number of Number of Cases Significant Cases 12 (0.71) 10 (0.59) 13 (0.76) 13 (0.76) 14 (0.82) 16 (0.94) 14 (0.82) 16 (0.94) Size Number of Significant Cases 10 (0.59) 15 (0.88) 11 (0.65) 14 (0.82)
Note. (i) Total number of product categories (number of cases)= 17. (ii) Figures in parentheses are proportion of cases out of 17. (iii) Significant cases correspond to 0.05 level of significance, one tailed test.
the second order derivatives, Models II and IV imply less stringent restrictions than Models I and III.14 All the four models were estimated using the data on brands and sizes. In order to conserve space only the results from Model IV are presented in Table 3. In Table 4 the summary of results from all the models are presented for comparison. As can be seen from Table 3, the predictions from the theory are strongly supported. Table 4 reveals that in general Models II and IV predicted better in terms of the number of significant coefficients than Models I and III. 6. Managerial Implications
Identifying Coupon Users The hypothesis developed in this paper makes predictions about who is more likely to use coupons and who is less likely to use them. Those consumers for whom it is "costly" to use coupons are less likely to use them than others. Several demographic variables (income, education, employment status, presence of children) were used as proxies to measure this cost. Since a manager is interested in targeting the coupon effort towards the users of coupons, understanding of the differential pattern of usage of coupons across consumers is valuable to the manager. Given different demographic profiles of media vehicles, a manager can identify the more easily targetable vehicles (i.e., the media vehicles that are likely to offer greater redemption rates) based on the hypothesis developed in this paper. CouponingAcross Brands and Sizes According to the hypothesis developed in this paper, higher-priced brands should coupon at a higher level, and larger sizes should be couponed with greater cents-off value but at a lower savings per unit than smaller sizes. For example, the models used to test these implications (see equation (8)) can serve as a "market model." Given the price of its brand, a firm can use this model to predict the savings it should offer for different sizes of its product. However, there are two important considerations (not dealt with in the model development) a manager must be aware of. The first consideration concerns uncertainty regarding product quality. In the absence of perfect knowledge concerning a product's quality, a consumer incurs a cost for trying a product whose quality he is uncertain about. In other words, informational costs will
14Models I and III imply that a2S/aP2
= a2S/aPaz = 0 while Models II and IV do not.
145
enter the full price paid for the product. Therefore, one would expect new brands in a product class to be couponed at a higher level than dictated by the market model. Next, the issue of couponing in different media was not considered in the market model. If there are systematic differences in the demographic profile and consumption pattern (of the product) of consumers across the different media, the manager has to decide and make a judgmental revision on the cents-off values for coupons in different media. This issue is further addressed below. Couponingin Different Media Assume for simplicity that consumers can be grouped into two segments: Elastic and Inelastic. Assume further that the elastic segment buys only with coupons and the inelastic segment buys without a coupon. Let the demand by the elastic segment be X which is a function of the price P and the vector of savings S = (sl, . . ., sn) where S, is the savings offered through the ith media. The marginal response of X to Si, i.e., ax/asi can be different across media. This could arise due to differences in the reach of the media vehicles, the demographic profile of the audience in the vehicle, etc. At the optimum, the firm should equate the net marginal return (i.e., the incremental contribution minus the marginal cost of coupon) across the different media. If we assume that the couponing cost is a fixed cost then at the optimum:
ax
(P-
Co- Si)=
a(P
- co-
S)
forall
-j
(9)
where C0 is the marginal cost of the product, assumed constant. While it is straightforward to characterize the optimum solution through first order conditions, use of this model as a managerial tool is fraught with several difficulties. First, it may be prohibitively costly for a firm to measure the demand functions. Second, adjusting the price and savings could be so costly (a factor not considered in the above model) that the firm has to adopt simplifying procedures. Third, the manager may be faced with a constraint limiting the amount he can spend on coupons. Thus, while (9) may serve as a descriptive model of firm behavior, it is a far cry from an operational model. To use the underlying criteria (i.e., equating the marginal returns across media) the following rule is suggested. Suppose the firm can obtain data on the distribution of coupons in different media (this should be a straightforward task) and can obtain the change in demand due to couponing. Then it is possible to estimate the response function across media as: AX = f(Si,) (10)
where AX is the change in the quantity demanded, Si the savings and DAis a vector of demographic variables for the ith medium or segment. Relevant demographic variables would be the wage rate of consumers, education, employment, status of the female head of the household, etc. The manager can simply rank the media in terms of their responsiveness due to couponing and decide on the savings to be offered. One way to estimate (10) would be to use a controlled drop of couponing in different matched segments. Frequencyof Couponing If the price discrimination hypothesis is valid, then the suggestion would be that the periodicity of couponing should equal the interpurchase time of the heavy users of coupons. When alternative vehicles are available (magazines and newspapers), one can stagger the coupon drop over time in order to reach as many consumers as possible. In summary, the theory has implications for some key managerial issues and certain suggested guidelines for others. However, extensions of the basic model are necessary
146
along with estimation with data on distribution and redemption in order to formulate specific strategies on some of the issues of relevance to managers. 7. Conclusion and Directions for Further Research
In this paper an important price cutting mechanism, viz., cents-off coupons, was studied. Based on a price theoretic model, consumers' decision to use coupons was analyzed. It was found that the data strongly supported the fundamental implication that the users of coupons are more price elastic than nonusers of coupons. However, the proxy variables used to describe the profile of coupon users provided only partial support. The data also strongly supported the implications that higher priced brands in a product class will coupon at greater savings relative to lower priced brands and that larger sizes will be couponed at a lower savings per unit of the product bought than smaller sizes. Future research should proceed along the following directions. (i) Theory Testing: Further research is needed to discriminate this hypothesis from the frequently mentioned competing hypothesis, viz., the trial-repeat purchase. Based on a model of the firm, this hypothesis should be developed and implications should be derived. One could then test one theory against another based on available evidence. (ii) Model of Coupon: A restrictive assumption made in the theoretical development was that there is only one couponed product. In reality, this assumption does not hold, and a consumer simultaneously decides on the coupon usage in different product categories. This aspect can be modeled by extending the model described in ?4. (iii) Model of the Firm: We considered one firm and one couponed product. When there are many brands, each possibly enjoying some localized monopoly power but still form substitutes of one another, the equilibrium amount of couponing and the relationship between the cents-off given and say, the price of the brand would be of interest. Alternatively, one could think of coupons as devices the firms use in a randomizing strategy faced with an elastic and inelastic segment. (iv) Empirical Testing: In testing the intensity of coupon usage across consumers, the dependent variable CUPUNT is a truncated dependent variable, since it takes on the value of zero for those who did not use coupons. Alternative econometric procedures like Tobit analysis can be used to model the relationship as in (7). One could also model this as a two-step process where the first step is deciding whether or not to use coupons and in the second step deciding how much to use them if the consumer decides to use coupons at all.15
Acknowledgement. This paper is part of my Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of Rochester. I am grateful to the members of my thesis committee: Marshall Freimer, Martin Geisel, Ronald Schmidt and, in particular, Subrata Sen for their constructive criticisms. I have also benefitted from the comments of my colleagues at Chicago, especially Peter Pashigian. The reviewers of this paper made several excellent suggestions and I thank them for this. I alone remain responsible for the remaining errors. Finally, I would like to thank NPD Research, Inc. for providing me with the data for empirical analysis.
15Thispaper was received October 1982 and has been with the author for 2 revisions.
References
Bearden, W. O., J. E. Teel and R. H. Williams (1981), "Consumer Response to Cents-Off Coupons," AMA Proceedings. Becker, G. S. (1971), Economic Theory, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Blattberg, R. C., T. Buesing, P. Peacock and S. K. Sen (1978), "Identifying the Deal Prone Segment," Journal of Marketing Research, 15 (August), 369-377. Dodson, J. A., A. M. Tybout and B. Sternthal (1978), "Impact of Deals and Deal Retraction on Brand Switching," Journal of Marketing Research, 15 (February), 72-81.
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Levedahl, W. J. (1983), "The Pricing of Cents-Off Coupons: Multipart Pricing or Price Discrimination?" Faculty Working Papers #37, Department of Economics and Business, North Carolina State University, Raleigh. Maddala, G. S. (1977), Econometrics,New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.. Narasimhan, C. (1982), "Coupons as Price Discrimination Devices-A Theoretical Perspective and Empirical Analysis," Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Graduate School of Management, University of Rochester. Neslin, S. and R. Shoemaker, "A Model for Evaluating the Profitability of Coupon Promotions," Marketing Science, 2, 4 (Fall), 361-388. Nielsen, A. C. (1965), "The Impact of Retail Coupons," Journal of Marketing, (October), 11-15. Rosen, S. (1974), "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, 82 (January-February), 34-55. Teel, J. E., R. H. Williams and W. O. Bearden (1980), "Correlates of Consumer Susceptibility to Coupons in New Grocery Product Introductions," Journal of Advertising3, 31-35, 46. Ward, R. W. and J. E. Davis (1978), "A Pooled Cross-Section Time Series Model of Coupon Promotions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, (August), 393-401. White, B. A. (1983), "Comparison Shopping and the Economics of Manufacturers' Coupons," Discussion Paper #517, Department of Economics, State University of New York, Buffalo.

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A Price Discrimination Theory of Coupons Author(s): Chakravarthi Narasimhan Source: Marketing Science, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Spring, 1984), pp.

MARKETING SCIENCE Vol. 3, No. 2, Spring 1984 Printed in U.S.A.

A PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS

PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS

PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS

PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS

PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS

1. Consumer Tradeoffs and Couponing Across Brands. FIGURE

959 0.30 596 0.22 884 0.20

- 0.027 (-8.73) -0.159 (-2.60) -0.162 (-2.94)

PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS

0.0007 (1.83) -5.01 (0.83) 0.39 (0.44) -0.0006 (-1.23)

- 1.61 x 10-7 (-1.18)

(-1.40) - 7.9 x 10-8 (-0.91)

0.32 (0.40) 0.24 (0.20)

PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS

(-4.85) - 0.0008 (-4.39)

aThe regression was not overall significant at the 0.05 level.

= a2S/aPaz = 0 while Models II and IV do not.

PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS

PRICE DISCRIMINATION THEORY OF COUPONS

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