The myth of retail pricing policy for developing organic vegetable markets

This paper examines the effects of retail pricing policy on the diffusion process of organic vegetables. Based on a unique dataset consisting of three-year transaction data from an online fresh produce retailer, we modeled the vegetable diffusion process with price and promotion effects, estimated the brand-level generalized Bass model and compared these effects on organic as well as conventional vegetables. Our findings are two major parts. First, only regular price exhibits significant effects on organic vegetable diffusion, while promotion depth or frequency does not. Furthermore, the negative effect of regular price is stronger for organic vegetables than for conventional vegetables.