Smart Pricing: How Google, Priceline, and Leading Businesses Use Pricing Innovation for Profitability »

Professor Jagmohan S. Raju is the Joseph J. Aresty Professor at the Wharton School and the Chair of the Marketing Department. He is also the Executive Director of the Wharton-Indian School of Business partnership. Before becoming an academic, Professor Raju worked with the Tata Administrative Service and Philips India Ltd.

He has a Ph.D., M.S., M.A. Stanford University; an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad; and a BTech from IIT Delhi. He was recognized for the best academic performance in his class for each of the two years he studied at IIM Ahmedabad, a merit scholarship at IIT Delhi, and the President’s Gold Medal at Punjab Public School, Nabha.

Professor Raju is the past Marketing Editor of Management Science and the Past President of the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science. His main areas of research include competitive marketing strategy, pricing, retailing, sales promotions, sales force compensation, corporate image advertising, and strategic alliances. He has supervised 12 doctoral dissertations to date. He coordinated the Wharton Marketing Department’s PhD Program. He serves on Wharton’s Academic Personnel Committee, and Globalization Committee.

His research papers have won the John DC Little best paper award (twice), the Frank Bass dissertation paper award (twice) and several other recognitions. He has received several teaching awards, some of which include the George Robbins Teaching Award and Marketing Teacher of the Year while he was at UCLA; Wharton Executive MBA Teaching Awards; Wharton Miller-Sherrerd Core Teaching Award, and the Indian School of Business Teaching Award. Professor Raju teaches the core marketing class and the pricing elective at Wharton.

Professor Z. John Zhang is a Professor of Marketing and Murrel J. Ades Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering Automation and Philosophy of Science from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China), a Ph.D. in History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and also a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan.

Prior to joining Wharton in 2002, John taught pricing and marketing management at the Olin School of Business of Washington University in St. Louis for three years and at Columbia Business School for five years. In the past eight years, John has also taught pricing to over two thousand Chinese executives in Mandarin as part of Wharton’s executive education and other outreach and collaborative programs. He also won the 2003 EMBA Electives Teaching Award for teaching pricing to Wharton EMBAs.

John’s research focuses primarily on competitive pricing strategies, the design of pricing structures, and channel management. He has published many articles in top marketing and management journals on various pricing issues such as measuring consumer reservation prices, price-matching guarantees, couponing, rebates, targeted pricing, access service pricing, choice of price promotion vehicles, channel pricing, price wars, and the pricing implications of combative advertising. In recent years, he has also developed a keen interest in the movie and telecom industries. He has also published a number of articles in Chinese on pricing and retailing issues in China. He currently is collaborating with scholars in many countries to explore various pricing and channel issues in emerging markets and beyond. He won the 2001 John D.C. Little Best Paper Award and the 2001 Frank Bass Best Dissertation Award, along with his co-authors, for his contribution to the understanding of targeted pricing with imperfect targetability.

As part of his service to the marketing community, John serves as Associate Editor for Quantitative Economics and Marketing. He is also an area editor for Marketing Science and Management Science.

“If you ever wondered how prices are determined, you will find it in Smart Pricing. This is the most comprehensive coverage on the topic for today’s new economy. The insights in this book are priceless.”

David J. Reibstein, The William S. Woodside Professor and Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and coauthor of Marketing Metrics

“Global competition and digital technology have made pricing decisions more challenging than ever before. In this smart and excellent book, Jagmohan Raju and John Zhang have packed many years of experience and expertise to help managers navigate through the complex environment that they face today.”

Sunil Gupta, Edward W. Carter Professor of Business and Head of the Marketing Department, Harvard Business School

“Smart Pricing offers a unique perspective on how pricing innovations can grow business and transform markets. Synthesizing best pricing practices from various businesses worldwide and research insights is quite illuminating. This superb book is a must-read for anyone interested in exploring the power of pricing.”

Kamel Jedidi, John A. Howard Professor of Business, Columbia University

“A must-read for all managers who have to make profitable pricing decisions in an increasingly international market environment. Raju and Zhang provide highly innovative solutions for the most challenging problems in modern pricing–scientifically founded, management-focused, and fun to read.”

Dr. Harley Krohmer, Chairman of the Institute of Marketing and Management, University of Bern - The Capital University of Switzerland

Innovative Pricing Strategies that Improve Profitability, Attract New Customers, and Transform Industries

In Smart Pricing, Wharton professors and renowned pricing experts Jagmohan Raju and Z. John Zhang draw on examples from high tech to low tech, from consumer markets to business markets, and from U.S. to abroad, to tell the stories of how innovative pricing strategies can help companies create and capture value as well as customers. They teach the pricing principles behind those innovative ideas and practices.

Smart Pricing introduces to marketing and product executives, along with corporate strategists, many innovative approaches to pricing, as well as the research and insights that went into their creation. Filled with illustrative examples from the business world, readers will discover restaurants where customers set the price...learn how Google and other high-tech firms have used pricing to remake whole industries...and understand how executives in China successfully start and fight price wars to conquer new markets.

Smart Pricing goes well beyond familiar approaches like cost-plus, buyer-based pricing, or competition-based pricing, and puts a wide variety of pricing mechanisms at your disposal. This book helps you understand them, choose them, and use them to win.

“Name your own price”: not just for Priceline anymore

New ways to match the right offer with the right customer at the right moment

The new art of the price war

How to plan and execute a price war to conquer new sales territories

Are the best things in life really free?

What you can give away, what you can’t, and how to defend against “free”

The snob premium: from cachet to cash

The more you pay, the more it’s worth

About the Authors xi

Introduction Fingerprints of the Invisible Hand 1

Chapter 1 "Pay As You Wish” Pricing 19

Chapter 2 Why the Best Things in Life Are Free 41

Chapter 3 The Art of Price Wars 59

Chapter 4 Thinking Small 79

Chapter 5 The Automatic Markdown 101

Chapter 6 Name Your Own Price 119

Chapter 7 Subscribe and Save: Pricing for Marketing Profitability 139

Chapter 8 The Snob Premium 161

Chapter 9 Pay if it Works 181

Chapter 10 Conclusion 201

Index 207