A design model for knowledge-based pricing services in the retail industry. (31st October 2011)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kowatsch, Tobias; Maass, Wolfgang
• Is Part Of: International journal of Web engineering and technology. Volume 6:Number 4(2011)
• Page Start: 302
• Page End: 319
• Publication Date: 2011-10-31
• Subjects: pricing service -- knowledge-based design model -- retail industry -- ecosystem -- operational agility -- interoperability -- business model -- semantic services -- ontologies -- web-based information system -- adoption and diffusion -- empirical study -- experiment; World Wide Web -- Periodicals; Web site development -- Periodicals; Application software -- Development -- Periodicals; 006.7
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1476-1289

Abstract

Marketing research has identified several benefits of dynamic pricing strategies in the retail industry. However, today's retailers are limited to apply them in real-time to customer needs as corresponding pricing services provided by smart product infrastructures have not been adopted so far. In addition, dynamic pricing strategies rely on a business service ecosystem of retailers, suppliers, customers and regulatory bodies and thus, interoperability is required. Because unprecedented, our objectives are therefore to propose, implement and evaluate a design model for pricing services that rely on explicit semantics and rules, denoted as knowledge-based pricing services (KPSs). In this work, we propose a design model for KPSs and empirically evaluate their utility from a customer perspective with the help of a web-based application. We finally draw implications for business models in the retail industry and discuss tools that already exist to adopt KPSs in the near future.