Competition:

Kinokuniya have both English books and Japanese books for sale in their retail outlet.

English books:

Kinokuniya is well-knowned for their variety and assortment of English books. Customers that shops at Kinokuniya however are also aware of the prices and are able to compare the merchandise with the other book retailers like Borders and Popular who might also have the same selection. Hence Kinokuniya make adjustments to markup price based on customer price sensitivity and competition.

Example:

Price at Kinokuniya: $42.70

Price at Borders: $45.90

Japanese books

They price the Japanese books by predetermined markup and merchandise cost as they have no direct competitors to compete with. (Borders do not sell Japanese books)

Cost:

Retailers maximize their profits by setting prices based on the price sensitivity of customers and the cost of merchandise and considerating the prices being charged by competitors.

We used (http://www.allbookstores.com/), a book comparing price website to find out how various retailer mark up the prce of the book.
This book bot will compare prices at all of the merchants stores to find the lowest price include :Shipping Cost, Shipping Time, Sales Tax (when required), Availability and Condition (New or Used).


Same book to do comparison across other online book store @:

http://www.allbookstores.com/book/compare/9780307269980

Title: The girl who played with fire




As for kinokuniya, it is price at $18.19

https://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/cgi-bin/bookseaohb.cgi?ISBN=0307474569&AREA=04&LANG=E

Variable Pricing & Price Discrimination :

Extracted from the Kinokuniya's website:
"As a Kinokuniya Privilege Card member, you are entitled to our 10% off privilege all year long.
The 10% off privilege is applicable at all Kinokuniya Singapore stores and our online book-order website, BookWeb Singapore, as well as with our preferred partners."


Technique: Kinokuniya does Variable Pricing by Market Segments ( Third Degree of Price Discrimination).

Explanation: As Kinokuniya has a Privilege loyalty card for its members, offering a 10% discount off the bill each time hence they are charging a group of customers -their loyal customers, different prices as compared to non loyal customers.

Therefore, it is Variable Pricing by Market Segments.

Referencing: http://kinokuniya.com.sg/card_about.html

High/Low Pricing:

Kinokuniya's prices for their regular books that can be found at any other bookstore such as Times or Borders for books like the Twilight saga or the Harry Potter series are priced very similar with only a difference of a few cents. However, the Japanese manga (comics) and magazines they offer are valued at more expensive prices for example, $15.80 for a japanese version of the "ViVi" girl's fashion magazine when you can purchase the same issue in chinese at any local magazine store like "buzz" at around $6.90. This could be due to the fact that most of these japanese books and magazines can only be found in Kinokuniya and not at any other bookstore.

To add on, there would be frequent sales promotion in Kinokuniya throughout the year giving about 10-20% discounts on all books within the store, and if you are a member of Kinokuniya, you can enjoy a further 10% discount on top of the sales discount already offered, attracting more customers who are price conscious and in turn increasing their sales.

Kinokuniya would also hold book promotions almost every month on certain books that are not selling well or those that have a high stock value, displaying them at the cashier counters to attract customers to purchase them when queueing up for payment.

Odd Pricing:

A price that usually ends with an odd number, which most retailers use to allow consumers to perceive the price as low.

Example from Kinokuniya Online Bookstore:

Title: You're the one that I (don't) want - SGD18.95

The Shadow Effect - $39.59

Happiness in Hard Times - $23.43

Prince of Persia, The Chronicles of Young Dastan - $25.15

Consumers would perceive the price of the book to be $18.00, instead of $18.95, which is close to $19.00 .

When the retailers uses such pricing techniques to set the price for the products, it would appeal to the consumers that the products are lower in price and it would help to increase the sales by outlining the various products that are priced in such a way.

Kinokuniya - Many of the books, magazaines and other reading material on the online bookstore, known as Kinokuniya BookWeb, has prices like $14.87, $29.95, $44.90 and $52.95. When consumers view through the online catalogue of books, they would feel that the price of the books are lower, due to the odd pricing techniques.

As Kinokuniya also have promotional books and magazines, such as the Movie Tie-In promotions and the various promotions, Kinokuniya uses the odd pricing techniques to appeal to the consumers, allowing consumers to perceive the price of the books on promotions to be much lower than Kinokuniya's competitors, who probably priced their products at a few cents more.

Kinokuniya also have a whole range of Japanese reading materials that are only available in their stores, which they set the prices such as $0.99, $8.95 and $22.90. When consumers look at the books priced at $0.99, they would perceive that the price is less than a dollar and definitely low, they would make their purchase.

This would then show that other than those that have nett prices set by the publishers, Kinokuniya had used the odd pricing techniques to set the price for most of their products, which would then psychologically suggest to the consumers that the price is much lower compared to other retailers.

Reference(s): http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/indexohb.cgi?AREA=04&LANG=E

Done By: Stacie, Jin Jing, Justin, Cynthia, Gerald