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Abstract
Every week, major food retailers have advertisements
in local newspapers in which they feature
commodities at special sale prices. Probes to measure
the effects of advertising these price specials,
however, are relatively recent in marketing economics
research. What effect do retail price specials
have on total sales in a market area, or in the whole
Nation? A preliminary study that attempted an
aggregate approach to this problem for frying
chickens was published by the USDA in 1963.1 A
substantial increase in sales volume would be expected
when fryers are featured as a special. Such
a change in volume should exceed the normal increase
expected from just lowering the price without
featuring the item. As a result, the demand function
at a designated price level during a special sales
promotion should shift to the right—larger sales at
the same price. The interaction of price and special
sales advertising might also be expected to change
the slope of the demand function in a direction that
would indicate an increase in price elasticity of demand.
These changes would occur if consumers
spent a greater percentage of their incomes on fryers
in sale weeks than in nonsale weeks.