Priskrig och konsumentöverskott

Sammanfattning: Title: Price Wars and Consumer Surplus Seminar date: 2020-06-03 Course: FEKH19, Bachelor Degree Project in Strategic Management, 15 ECTS Authors: Felix Thunström, Malkolm Wester, Oliver Nilsson, Simon Taillefer Dellenholt Advisor: Niklas L. Hallberg Key words: Pharmacy, Price wars, Consumer surplus, VPC framework, Perfect competition Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a price war affects consumer surplus. Methodology: A quantitative study with a hypothesis testing deductive approach was conducted. The design of the study was a retrospective natural experiment with longitudinal elements. Data was collected through a digital survey directed towards consumers who had purchased products from Swedish pharmacies both before 2016 and recently. Variables were operationalised mainly with consideration to previous studies. Data were compiled and then statistically analysed in SPSS Statistics. Theoretical perspectives: The main theory in this paper is Heil & Helsen’s (2001) theory about price wars that both defines the phenomenon and explains that there is uncertainty about the effects on consumers. Furthermore, Hallberg’s (2017) article on value, consumer surplus and Tirole’s (1988) VPC framework is used. Other theoretical perspectives include perfect competition (Robinson, 1934; Hall, 1986; Amountzias, 2020; Slater, 1997), which is used to illustrate how price wars reasonably should lead to the society approaching a welfare maximising condition from a consumer perspective. Empirical foundation: Collection of data was made possible mainly through a consumer survey. A total of 118 respondents answered the survey of which 113 answers were used in the study’s data analysis. Conclusions: The study shows that the consumer surplus has increased since the commencement of the price war, as a consequence of a lower price and a higher value. Service quality and resource consumption in terms of time increased, while product quality decreased.