فواد عشقی

Agricultural products, are mostly perishable, and ensuring their quality through methods like cold storage or optimal conditions can present significant economic challenges for retailers and small-scale producers. In some cases, these products lose their quality and marketability within a span of less than 24 hours. The main challenge in adopting this strategy is determining the timing and amount of the price discount. To optimize price discounting, four functions need to be estimated: a) a time-dependent quality function, b) a price change function, c) a demand function that is a function of price and quality, and d) an objective function, which is considered here as the retailer's profit function. We employ dynamic pricing models that integrate factors such as quality degradation, inventory levels, and consumer behavior. The research data was collected from three fruit and vegetable stores in Gorgan city. The time period was three months, comprising all working days. Each seller was asked to report the price and quantity of sales on an hourly basis from the beginning to the end of the working day. In this way, about 1000 data were recorded from each store. Tomato was selected as case study due to their widespread consumption, continuous supply, and rapid perishability. The results show that price discounts can significantly enhance profitability while reducing the risk of unsold and wasted products. Specifically, the findings indicate that implementing price discounts every 3 to 4 hours yielded the highest profitability. The average discount is 35%, leading to an 82% increase in gross profit. In contrast, shorter discount intervals (every 1 to 2 hours) with an average discount of 18% improved gross profit by 73%. On the other hand, longer discount intervals (every five to seven hours) with an average discount of 46% resulted in a 66% increase in gross profit. Furthermore, this study further emphasizes how crucial consumer perception is to the effectiveness of dynamic pricing methods. The perception of lower product quality brought on by excessive discounting may have a detrimental effect on long-term store credit and customer trust. Perishable product waste can be reduced through the implementation of price reduction strategies. However, the results indicate that sellers’ profits increase in the absence of price reductions. Future research could enhance this framework by incorporating additional factors that influence product quality, such as temperature, humidity, and product variety; examining the effects of consumer price expectations on demand; extending the model to other perishable products, including meat and dairy; and leveraging advanced technologies, such as blockchain and artificial intelligence, to improve dynamic pricing and inventory management.

In addition to imposing a negative impact on public health, Covid-19 has made the world face a huge financial-economic crisis. The worldwide spread of the coronavirus has also affected the volume of transactions and the value of stocks. Since the food market is more affected under crisis conditions, this relationship has been investigated in the stock exchange in the present study. In order to investigate the effect of Covid-19 patients on the stock index value of food industry companies as well as the relationship between risk and stock index value, the official daily data of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and the Financial Information Processing Center of Iran were collected from March 3, 2021 when the first report was announced, to June 2, 2021. Mean Conditional heteroscedasticityvariance regression models were used in the current study. The statistical model specification tests showed that, first, the assumption of heteroscedasticitywas rejected and the needto useheteroscedasticitymodels was proved. Secondly, the asymmetry assumption was accepted. Model estimation results showed a relationship between the numbers of Covid-19 patients with the stock value of the food industry that was an increase in the number of infected people causes a decrease in the stock value of the food industry. Therefore, like other economic sectors, the capital market was affected by the Covid-19 crisis, and increasing exchange rate as a competing market had a negative effect on the stock price index. Also, considering the relationship between risk and stock value of food industries, as expected, there was an inverse and significant relationship between risk and stock value of food industry companies. In other words, an increase in risk leads to a decrease in the stock price of food industries.