My dissertation is a collection of three essays with analytical models at the interface of marketing and operations with a focus on pricing. The common theme in this dissertation is studying the effect of the consumer-driven demand on the optimal operational decisions of a single firm. This dissertation includes co-authored material. In my first essay, I study the role of consumers' opposing perceptions of green quality on the optimal product line decisions, i.e., products, prices and quality by analyzing the firm's optimization problem and incorporating an endogenous demand model that emerges from the consumers' preferences while considering the cost implications of introducing a green product. My second essay is on optimal timing of price discounts. Delaying discounts, i.e., giving discounts on future spending based on current spending is a prevalent retail discounting practice. For a market of rational and forward-looking consumers who repeatedly visit and purchase with the firm, we analyze the relative efficacy of delayed credits vs. a natural alternative of immediate discounts. In my third essay, I explore a firm's optimal pricing strategy when it simultaneously rents and sells a product for which consumers have a priori valuation uncertainty.

With the development of the Internet and online payment, Online to Offline (O2O) platforms come into people’s lives. O2O platforms provide offline goods and ser-vices for their online users and these platforms are various, for example, they can help the users to call taxis, order food, call babysitters, make orders for cleaning the car and so on, which help people a lot for its convenience. At the same time, attracting customers for these platforms becomes a problem and many of these choose to make discount strategies to reach their goals. Companies invest a lot of money on discounts for competition while investment sometimes is risky, because the company maybe cannot earn the money back, so it is very important to learn how to make discount strategies for O2O platform wisely.Eleme will be studied as the case of this study, because it is a successful example of developing its food delivery O2O platform through investing a lot of money on giving discounts to attract lots of users. Eleme is one of the best food delivery O2O platforms in China, and its users are quite many, so it is a suitable choice to investigate. A mixed method is used in this study. Interviews have been done on commercial tenants of Eleme and questionnaires have been sent to ordinary end-users of Eleme, and the combination of these two parts can lead to good dis-count strategies. To answer the questions of the thesis, relevant knowledge about O2O platform, market strategies, discount strategies, consumer behavior and measures taken by Eleme will be used.The result of this study shows that discounts of the O2O platform do attract lots of customers and giving discounts is a good way to be competitive. At the same time, the platform needs to balance the profits of itself and its commercial tenants, and pays attention to needs of the ordinary end-users behind discounts in case of los-ing them. Eleme used a lot of wise discount strategies to develop itself, but the competition in this area is continuing and many measures can be taken for further development.

This study builds on the paper by Arquette, Brown, and Burdekin (2008) and asks whether the factors which they find to be significant in influencing the differential between the share prices of Chinese securities traded on their home market in Shanghai versus share prices observed offshore in Hong Kong and New York have varying degrees of influence when compared across industries. This paper focuses on Chinese companies listed on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges and finds that the proxy variables of expected exchange rate change, relative market sentiment, and relative company sentiment are significant in determining the average discount observed and that their effects do indeed vary significantly from industry to industry.

In Chapter 1, I analyze a setting where a pair of retailers which sell unrelated products at the same location (e.g., a strip mall) compete with other retailers located at a different strip mall across town by jointly introducing a bundling discount while independently setting their respective stand-alone prices. Customers who shop from multiple strip malls rather than only one incur additional exogenous shopping costs. I first show that if each retailer chooses a bundling discount non-cooperatively, then the equilibrium bundling discounts will be zero. In contrast, pairs of firms located at the same strip mall always find it profitable to jointly offer positive bundling discounts in order to encourage customer loyalty. Moreover, I demonstrate as a comparative static that as the shopping costs increase, pairs of firms have less incentive to make joint bundling arrangements in equilibrium. If only one pair can introduce a bundling discount, in equilibrium while total industry profit rises, consumer surplus and welfare fall with the increase in shopping costs. When both pairs offer the bundling discounts, all consumers buy a bundle in equilibrium. Thus, the presence of a positive shopping cost does not affect any industry variables in equilibrium except stand-alone equilibrium prices which decrease with the shopping costs so that the standard Hotelling result extends to this case. In Chapter 2, I investigate the effects of shopping costs on the merger incentives of these unrelated retailers in the context of bundling. I demonstrate that contrary to one’s initial conjecture, pairs of firms do not merge to internalize the externalities created by shopping costs and bundling discounts. While consumers are better off with the merger outcome, consumer and total welfare fall significantly when firms stay independent in equilibrium. In Chapter 3, I analyze how legacy carriers and Southwest Airlines respond to the threat of AirTran Airways entry. My estimation results suggest that equilibrium prices of legacy carriers are on average lower in response to the threat of entry by AirTran as expected, whereas those of Southwest are on average higher. This robust result on AirTran and Southwest competition echoes the pricing behavior in the pharmaceutical industry where brand-name prices increase before and after generic entry. The incumbent low cost carrier Southwest, especially with the incapability to further lower its prices significantly, may still find it profitable to capitalize on its loyal price-inelastic (i.e., high-end) customers. Anticipating a definite price cut from AirTran, however, the high-end customers of legacy carriers may be more sensitive to price differentials offered by AirTran relative to the high-end customers of Southwest because of the size of the offer. Hence, legacy carriers, in contrast, simply reduce their prices in response to threat of AirTran entry to keep these valuable customers. / text

The subject of the diploma´s thesis is the comparison of the particular private rail transport policies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. There are specific, both economic and non-economic impacts of a free fare in Slovakia and slightly different policy of fare discounts in the Czech Republic, identified and consequently analyzed in the thesis. Comparative analysis between both policies is conducted right after. All the impacts are measured and evaluated in the context of particular government budgets, both national and private railway transporters and different segments of users, who are mostly affected by the movement. The analysis of these extraordinary government policies is conducted based on selected publicly available indicators and data from several different sources (official statistics, agreements, annual reports, tariffs comparison, financial statements, granted subsidies etc.).

This master‘s thesis is focused on drafting a marketing strategy proposal and recommendation for Petit Press, a.s., which owns a discount aggregator Zľavy.sme.sk. The first part of the thesis describes the individual aims of the work. The second chapter focuses on the theoretical background of the work that is needed to better understand this issue. The third chapter is focused on the application of this knowledge in the analysis of the marketing mix and the environment in which the aggregator operates, and also describes the marketing research realized among customers of the aggregator. Based on the data and facts, the last chapter of the thesis presents specific proposals for adjusting and improving the marketing strategy of aggregator SME.

Aim of the thesis is the analysis and design of parts Discount portal. Content of the work consists of two main parts, theoretical and practical. The theoretical part describes the analysis of Discount portal. Further work describes the behavior of discount portals and finally discusses the competitive discount aggregators and portals. The work is carried out detailed SWOT analysis portal, and also assessed the economic aspects and benefits of work. The practical part deals by itself parts Parts Discount website, its description and methodology of technology.

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CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Vive-se em um mundo com muitos recursos computacionais, planilhas grÃficas ou calculadoras financeiras. Tornam-se indiscutÃveis e indispensÃveis que alÃm desses recursos necessitamos, no mÃnimo, dos conceitos bÃsicos da MatemÃtica Financeira, para um entendimento mais apurado do assunto, possibilitando a aplicaÃÃo de cÃlculos financeiros na tomada de decisÃes. O objetivo dessa dissertaÃÃo à mostrar como se comporta os emprÃstimos consignados e os consÃrcios buscando fazer ligaÃÃo imediata com a nossa realidade. / We live in a world with many computational resources, financial spreadsheets or graphical calculators. Become indisputable and indispensable addition to these features we need at least the basic concepts of financial mathematics to a more accurate understanding of the subject, enabling the application of financial calculations in making decisions. The objective of this dissertation is to show how it behaves payroll loans and consortia seeking to make direct connection with our reality.

This master thesis deals with the issue of special discounts. Assessments and proposals of successful special offers are based on the analysis of demand price elasticity. The key attribute of this work is the knowledge of product’s price elasticity of demand. The analysis of price elasticity of demand is based on real data. The paper is terminated with suggestions on creating and planning special discounts developed in consideration of the retailers’ specific goals.