Barbie Dolls Market Segmentation - Assignment Example

Name Institution Course Lecturer Date Supply and Demand of Dolls Prices of barbie dolls around the world Region Type of doll Advertised price Price in Australia Source of the pricing information USA Royal dress up US$26.29 AU$28.2427 Diapers.com Fashionitas US$18.79 AU$20.180 Diaoers.com Japan Princess of japan $19.95 AU$21.4318 Barbiecollector.com India Barbie in the pink shoe Rs449 AU$8.01910 Flipkart.com Malaysia Barbie I can a be magician Rm40.00 AU$13.2332 Lazada.com.my Barbie fashion doll Rm28.00 AU$9.2632 Lazada.com.my Canada Nude barbie doll S$37.51 AU$36.8403 Ebay.com.sg Holland Princess of Holland barbie doll $19.95 AU$21.4318 Barbiecollector.com Barbie dolls market segmentation The doll market has been dominated by different types of dolls whose demand and supply depends on the providers and the consumers. Among the dolls that have been selling in these markets include the teddybear dolls, china dolls, American girl dolls among others. The market initially picked so well in places such as Australia, America, japan, and some, parts of middle east nations. In the early 1960s the Barbie doll was introduced in the market. (Bennett, p. 24) The selling of the Barbie dolls was not very easy given that the fast type of the Barbie doll was made of wood. However, the continued re-invention of Barbie dollsmade them be able to keep up the prevailing competition at the time. With time the marketing of these dolls picked and rose outdoing all the other dolls in the market at that time. Thebarbie making, for instance her body size has not experienced much changes, though some barbies may have more movable parts , size and the shape has continually been the same.(Wedel,p.56) By applying the criteria for market types it can be concluded that the submarket for Barbie dolls has formed aform of monopoly. This is because the selling of Barbie dolls as compared to other dolls has been able to command a quite big market share due to her distinctive qualities. Barbie doll the only brand of her kind has monopolized the dolls market by creating several market segments to serve the needs of different consumers. Despite the fact that there areother types of dolls, Barbie doll has singled herself out of the larger dolls market forming a monopoly sub-market.Mattel the owner of the barbie doll idea, has gone ahead and created a brand out of her with aproduct line that comprises of barbie dolls, barbie clothing as well as barbie accessories. The barbie dolls sub market in bid to maximize her sales, has resulted to dividing the market into subgroups of consumers depending on their wants and prioritiesand designing the dolls in manner that meets their specific desires. For instance those who think that a given type of barbie doll designed to represent a particular occupation say, engineering, best works to improve a given quality in their children they definitely make efforts to get that specific doll. In so doing the barbie dolls are able to segregate the market into different consumer groups depending on their specifications. The market segments and differentiation practiced in the barbie dolls marketing involves; psychographic segmentation, demographic segmentation, geographic segmentation. The barbie dolls market is segmented in terms of people’s interests and opinions towards the various types of barbie dolls. Psychographics are personal attributes, attitudes interests as well as their lifestyles. This attributes though not easily recognized by the seller they help in knowing the best type of a barbie doll that best fits the desires of the consumer. Another market segmentation that Mattel and Amazon have employed in the marketing of barbie dolls is by the size of population of the consumers. In regions where there are high populations the seller lowers the price of the dolls but raises but the cost of clothing for the dolls. Demographic market segmentationcharacteristics may comprise of age, sex or even income. In the marketing of barbie dolls demographic features helps the sellers to determine where to supply more of the dolls especially depending on the sex. In additiongeographic segmentation enables the seller to localize their marketing depending on the consumers locally based needs. This also helps the seller to understand the variability of different regions thus ability to cater for their specific needs.(Wedel, p.56) Price discrimination by Mattel and Amazon The fact that Matteland Amazon have been able to monopolize the dolls market gives them a commercial advantage over other dolls providers. They are therefore able to practice price discrimination in the market, by subdividing the consumers into various,groups depending on their preferences. Since the demand for barbie dolls also varies from one subgroup of consumers to the other, Mattel and Amazon are able to sell their dolls at different prices to them. This is achieved by identifying the consumers of barbie dolls in a certain group and depending on their preferences that makes them prefer agiven type of barbie doll as opposed to other consumer group, set their prices differently.For instance in the case of occupational dolls,those consumers who prefer paleontologist barbie dolls are charged a higher price than their counterparts who prefer teacher barbie dolls. Another way that Mattel and Amazon may practice price discrimination is through the use of their branded barbie doll products such as the barbie doll clothing. They may decide to sell their dolls atlow cost but charge their dress a high amountdue to their popularity. Therefore charge different prices for the different types of clothes. (Laffont et al, p.43) Price discrimination by Mattel and Amazon is illustrated in the figure below. Fig. 1 price P MC MR AR 0 Quantity Note; MR-is the marginal revenue AR- is the average revenue MC- marginal cost p- price This is perfect price discrimination; every barbie doll consumer is charged his or her own price depending on their preferences. This leaves them without any consumer surplus, and therefore the demand curve also serves as the marginal revenue curve. This is because both Mattel and Amazon do not have to lower the dolls prices for the consumers who are charged high prices in order to sell more. Nevertheless, more barbie dolls are sold,even though the prices are high to some consumers. However it should be noted that the outcomes of the whole transaction is efficient in that the sum of both producers’ and the consumers’ surplus is maximized, where it all goes to the producers; Mattel an Amazon. This is achieved by offering each individual consumer a take it or leave itprice quantity combination. Other examples of 1st degree price discrimination The selling of popcorns in a movie theatre the seller charges his/her buyer’s high price. This enables the seller to take the advantage of the large number of consumers and thus extracts their total surplus. Universities are able to discriminate their academic services by offering lower prices to some students in the form of financial aid and charges extremely high those students who do not benefit from the financial aids. The discounts offered to the senior citizens and children are discriminated on the basis of those who have a more elastic demand for the movies.This means that those who are more responsive to the changes in the prices of the movies benefits from the reduced prices of the movies. These examples indicate thatwhere consumers have no choice to make for the goods being offered in the market, gives the sellers a chance to choose on either price or quantity when making their pricing decisions. This permits sellers or organizations to extract all consumersurplus. References Wedel, Michel. Market segmentation: Conceptual and methodological foundations. Springer, 2000. Laffont, Jean-Jacques, Patrick Rey, and Jean Tirole. "Network competition: II. Price discrimination." The RAND Journal of Economics (1998): 38-56. Bennett, David. "Getting the ID to go shopping: psychoanalysis, advertising, Barbie dolls, and the invention of the consumer unconscious." Public Culture 17.1 (2005): 1-26. Read More