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Олейник Оксана, МЭ-081

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The headline of this article is “The discounting”.

The article reveals the pricing strategies of Russian retailers during the crisis period. The author of this article describes the ways of attracting customers by appropriate price policy and gives the examples of its successful realization.

The author claims that the crisis has made all the consumers be concerned about sudden price rising and good marketers from different retail chains take advantage of this situation. Trading network “Euronet”, for example, raised the demand for its production by declaring that low prices will disappear in a few weeks and the same goods will be more expensive.

One more striking example of this situation is the retail chain Finn Flare that increased sales volume, eliminated the threats of opening a new season with remains of old collections, raised floating assets and liquidity by applying right discount policy before the Christmas holidays. Then the company set low prices on spring collection, because the target group of Finn Flare had suffered from crisis more than others and its income had reduced. Finn Flare was focusing on preserving its market share. PR-manager of the company confirms that such policy was rather efficient as it helped to keep customers.

Other methods of attracting customers can be presented by retail chain “Pease”. It puts the emphasis on price targeting and analyzes the demand for household appliances and electronics. The results of its research show that the most effective ways to raise cash inflow is to simulate demand for “investment” commodities. These are expensive goods that can be used for consumption or as a commodity currency. The advantages of this strategy are cash inflow rises; stocks become empty and a tendency to buy other goods appears.

In my opinion discounts are mutual profitable for both retailers and its customers. Crisis of 2009 brought a lot of changes in the market situation and ruined the balance between supply and demand. The lack of liquidity made retailers come up with different tricks and offer big discounts for different commodities. However customers should be aware of probable poor quality of goods that sellers try to rid of.