Pricing and Promotions in Retail Tea Market in Argentina

Abstract

Argentina has long been a tea provider with diverse types and variants dispatched to the internal market and abroad. The drink and its variants are a popular complement to other infusions such as yerba mate and coffee. We scraped an extensive online price database for analyzing the tea products offered in local supermarkets. We use a panel data modeling approach and test if attributes are associated with pricing and price discounting in the retail tea market. We control the estimations for time effects and exchange rate metrics because of the unstable macroeconomics. Time effects are highly significant and robust across estimations: we detect weekly, seasonal patterns, and yearly cycles. Attributes such as brand and variety play a weaker role in pricing but a stronger one in promotions.