Cited by 336Consumer Market Behavior and PricingEconomics of Agriculture and Food MarketsSupply Chain and Inventory Management

Are online and offline prices similar? Evidence from large multi-channel retailers

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Cavallo, Alberto·2017·American Economic Review

Abstract

Online prices are increasingly used for measurement and research applications, yet little is known about their relation to prices collected offline, where most retail transactions take place. I conduct the first large-scale comparison of prices simultaneously collected from the websites and physical stores of 56 large multi-channel retailers in 10 countries. I find that price levels are identical about 72 percent of the time. Price changes are not synchronized but have similar frequencies and average sizes. These results have implications for national statistical offices, researchers using online data, and anyone interested in the effect of the Internet on retail prices. (JEL D22, L11, L81, O14)

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  • The adherence between online and offline price levels for multichannel retailers has already been proven across multiple countries.

    “The adherence between online and offline price levels for multichannel retailers has already been proven across multiple countries (Cavallo, 2017(Cavallo, , 2018)).”

    From Sanctions and Russian online prices (2024) · cites this paper as Cavallo, 2017

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Research works printed but not linked: 9

  1. [3]3. Baye, Michael R., John Morgan, and Patrick Scholten. 2006. "Information, Search, and Price Disper- sion." In Economics and Information Systems, edited by Terrence Hendershott, 323-76. Amster- dam: Elsevier.
  2. [8]8. Brynjolfsson, Erik, Yu Jeffrey Hu, and Mohammad S. Rahman. 2013. "Competing in the Age of Omnichannel Retailing." MIT Sloan Management Review 54 (4): 152-65.
  3. [13]13. Cavallo, Alberto. Forthcoming. "Scraped Data and Sticky Prices." Review of Economics and Statistics.
  4. [14]14. Cavallo, Alberto. 2017. "Are Online and Offline Prices Similar? Evidence from Large Multi-Channel Retailers: Dataset." American Economic Review. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20160542.
  5. [32]32. Klena, Kali, and Jill Puleri. 2013. From Transactions to Relationships: Connecting with the Transi- tioning Shopper: Australian Insights from the 2013 Smarter Consumer Study. St. Leonards: IBM Institute for Business Value.
  6. [33]33. Krsinich, Frances. 2015. "Price Indexes from Online Data Using the Fixed-Effects Window-Splice (FEWS) Index." Paper presented at Ottawa Group Conference, Tokyo, Japan.
  7. [46]46. Brian Adams, Kevin R. Williams. 2019. Zone Pricing in Retail Oligopoly. American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 11:1, 124-156. [Abstract] [View PDF article] [PDF with links]
  8. [47]47. Alberto Cavallo, W. Erwin Diewert, Robert C. Feenstra, Robert Inklaar, Marcel P. Timmer. 2018. Using Online Prices for Measuring Real Consumption across Countries. AEA Papers and Proceedings 108, 483-487. [Abstract] [View PDF article] [PDF with links]
  9. [48]48. Austan D. Goolsbee, Peter J. Klenow. 2018. Internet Rising, Prices Falling: Measuring Inflation in a World of E-Commerce. AEA Papers and Proceedings 108, 488-492. [Abstract] [View PDF article] [PDF with links]

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Authors
Cavallo, A.
Affiliations
National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
Corresponding author
Cavallo, Alberto
Venue
American Economic Review
Published
2017-01-01
Volume
107
Issue
1
Pages
283-303
ISSN
0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2335991931
Cited by
336
References
26
Citations by year
2026: 28 · 2025: 42 · 2024: 38 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 37 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 37 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 1
FWCI
45.10
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economics of Agriculture and Food Markets
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management Information Systems › Supply Chain and Inventory Management
Keywords
online prices, price synchronization, multichannel retailing, price measurement, price changes, consumer price statistics

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