OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
We show that customer loyalty programs, and more specifically, discounts for frequent buyers, are an outcome of price discrimination by firms in imperfectly competitive markets with costly consumer search. We consider models of both search goods and experience goods when consumers differ only in their purchase frequency. Consumers’ valuations are drawn from the same distribution and consumers have identical costs of search. However, because frequent buyers have greater incentives to search, in equilibrium they have better outside options, search more often, and have higher ex post expected valuations. Competing firms offer lower prices to frequent buyers, and when consumers’ purchase frequency is private information, they do so using loyalty programs or frequent buyer discounts. These consumers receive lower prices even though in equilibrium they have greater gains from trade (higher valuations).