Product Line Design And Pricing Considering Consumer Preferences And Perception

This thesis first introduces the definition and meaning of Product Line and points out the significance of product line research by identifying both positive and negative effects of product line decision on a firm. Secondly, this thesis reviews and summarizes the existing literature on product line, with a focus on three decision-making studies:product line design, product line pricing and product line production planning. Thirdly, two product line design and/or pricing problems are extensively analyzed.The first problem is the product line design considering consumer preferences. By con-sidering a product as a combination of several attributes and levels, the thesis adopts hybrid conjoint analysis in a product line design model with various objectives. Corresponding approximation algorithm is put forward to this NP-hard problem which shows good perfor-mance when compared with accurate algorithm. As an extended application, product line design of securities investment fund based on investors'preferences is introduced and re-searched using the new models and methods, along with an empirical research. The second question is the product line design and pricing based on consumer perception with different market information. Optimal product line design and pricing decisions are analyzed when market information (full information and asymmetric information), production technology (production costs, inventory costs and shortage costs) and consumer perception (consumers of high or low reservation price) are taken into consideration.Finally, a summary is presented and limitation discussed, along with a preview of some possible extensions and directions of relevant topics.