Markdown Pricing Under an Unknown Parametric Demand Model

Abstract

Consider a single-product revenue-maximization problem where the seller monotonically decreases the price in $n$ rounds with an unknown demand model coming from a given family. Without monotonicity, the minimax regret is $\tilde O(n^{2/3})$ for the Lipschitz demand family and $\tilde O(n^{1/2})$ for a general class of parametric demand models. With monotonicity, the minimax regret is $\tilde O(n^{3/4})$ if the revenue function is Lipschitz and unimodal. However, the minimax regret for parametric families remained open. In this work, we provide a complete settlement for this fundamental problem. We introduce the crossing number to measure the complexity of a family of demand functions. In particular, the family of degree-$k$ polynomials has a crossing number $k$. Based on conservatism under uncertainty, we present (i) a policy with an optimal $Θ(\log^2 n)$ regret for families with crossing number $k=0$, and (ii) another policy with an optimal $\tilde Θ(n^{k/(k+1)})$ regret when $k\ge 1$. These bounds are asymptotically higher than the $\tilde O(\log n)$ and $\tilde Θ(\sqrt n)$ minimax regret for the same families without the monotonicity constraint.