Quantity Discounts: An Overview and Practical Guide for Buyers and Sellers

Quantity Discounts surveys operations management literature and offers ways to bridge remaining gaps between research and practice. The authors include formulas and solution methods for some of the fundamental quantity discount scenarios from both buyers' and sellers' perspectives. Sample solution methods provide enough detail to enable implementation by managers, and they provide a flavor of the variety and complexity of some of the core techniques appearing in the literature. Quantity Discounts is organized as follows. Section 2 describes quantity discount conditions and realities, including the many reasons why companies offer them, the various quantity discount characteristics, results from surveys of practicing mangers, and a sampling of real-world discounts appearing in the literature. Section 3 provides a literature review for buyer's perspective models, while Section 4 provides a review for seller's perspective models. Section 5 concludes with several recommendations for future research. Finally, especially designed for instructors and practitioners, the Appendix illustrates how to implement several standard quantity discount models into Microsoft Excel with relative ease.