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RSM2513H – Pricing

General Information

Instructor(s)

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Instructor Bio

Zemin (Zachary) Zhong is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Rotman. He obtained his PhD in Business Administration from Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. His research focuses on online platforms, information consumption, and emerging markets. His research is published in Marketing Science, Management Science, and JEBO. Professor Zhong has been awarded the Rotman Teaching Award.

Target Audience

This course is appropriate for anyone who expects to be involved in the determination, execution and communication of a price. This includes students who plan careers in general management, marketing, sales, strategy, and customer services. The course is not restricted to any particular industry, and is appropriate for both B-2-B and B-2-C, and for both products and services applications.

Prerequisite

RSM 1250: Managing Customer Value

Format

2 classes per week over 6 weeks in Term 4

Course Mission

After taking this course, students will be able to:

  1. Understand the importance of the demand curve and customer willingness-to-pay in pricing strategy, and learn methods of estimating the demand curve including pricing experiments;
  2. Learn how to calculate profit-maximizing prices;
  3. Calculate expected value to customers (EVC) and develop the concept of value based pricing;
  4. Understand relevant costs in determining prices, and develop a cost-based framework for pricing;
  5. Understand the effect of non-price factors on price image and perceived value;
  6. Applying theoretical insights to price competitions and auctions;
  7. Be sensitive to consumer behavior factors that play a large role in pricing effectiveness; and
  8. Understand innovative pricing strategies like bundling and price customization.

Course Scope

Price setting is one of the most important marketing mix decisions. It involves an understanding of both supply side factors (e.g. costs) and demand side factors (e.g. consumer willingness to pay). While traditional approaches to pricing theory have revolved around an economic and financial framework, a broader and more pragmatic view entails a comprehensive understanding of the demand side, both at the level of individual customer values, and the more aggregate level of price sensitivities of the market. Using product categories as diverse as hardware/software, healthcare, industrial products and consumer packaged goods, we will study economic and behavioural approaches to pricing, value pricing, price customization, bundling, and retail pricing strategies, amongst other topics.

Evaluation and Grade Breakdown

ComponentDue DateWeight
Class ParticipationOngoing20%
AssignmentTBA15%
Case Write-UpWeek 630%
Final ExamDuring exam period35%

Required Resources

There is an electronic course packet that includes several cases and a few articles. Additional required readings will be posted to Quercus. (There is no required textbook for the course, but optional textbooks readings will be included in the syllabus.)

Last Updated: 2022-11-24 @ 5:13 pm