You are a senior sales and marketing analyst for a major retailing firm in Idaho. The marketing manager just stopped by your office with a very frustrated look on her face. She tells you that she is confused as to why, every time the company raises the sales price of its products, total revenue for the company declines. Based on this information, which of the following explanations do you give her for why this situation occurs?

a. The demand for the company’s products is inelastic, so total revenue declines when prices are raised.
b. The demand for the company’s products is elastic, so total revenue declines when prices are raised.
c. The demand for the company’s products is elastic, so unit sales increase when prices are raised.
d. The demand for the company’s products is inelastic, so unit sales increase when pricesare raised.
e. The demand for the company’s products is elastic, so fixed costs increase when prices are raised

Agood for which demand increases as income rises is and a good for which demand increases as income falls is

Onsider the following subscription behavior information from genie, a web site that provides tools for constructing a family tree (ancestor search). subscriptions cost $9.99 per month, but you are charged for the entire year at the time of purchase. there is a one-year minimum term when you sign up for the service. once purchased, subscriptions are set to renew automatically unless the subscriber cancels them. when a membership renews, it renews for a one-year term and again you are charged for the entire year. there are no variable costs associated with providing this service to an individual customer, but genie does engage in customer relationship activities that they believe will increase customer retention. these customer relationship activities cost genie about $10 per year per customer. based on a sample of 1000 customers that joined genie five years ago, near the time when the company was founded, they were able to determine how many of those customers remained subscribers in the second year, third year etc. based on this information, genie calculated the average annual retention rate to be 20%. genie uses an annual discount rate of 8%. a. last year, genie spent $10,000 placing advertisements on google. genie management believes that these advertisements were responsible for about 300 new subscribers. would you recommend to genie management that they purchase more google ads? b. suppose a newly-introduced loyalty program increases the number of customers that remained to 30%. does this new data change your answer to 9.a? c. do you have any hesitations or concerns about making recommendations to management based on your above estimate of customer lifetime value?

Suppose there are three types of consumers who attend concerts at your university’s performing arts center: students, staff, and faculty. each of these groups has a different willingness to pay for tickets; within each group, willingness to pay is identical. there is a fixed cost of $1,000 to put on a concert, but there are essentially no variable costs. for each concert: i. there are 140 students willing to pay $20. (ii) there are 200 staff members willing to pay $35. (iii) there are 100 faculty members willing to pay $50. a) if the performing arts center can charge only one price, what price should it charge? what are profits at this price? b) if the performing arts center can price discriminate and charge two prices, one for students and another for faculty/staff, what are its profits? c) if the performing arts center can perfectly price discriminate and charge students, staff, and faculty three separate prices, what are its profits?