Price movements in the Japanese online home electronics market

This article investigates the price movements of home electronics products listed on a Japanese price comparison site. Our findings are as follows. (1) Price dispersion increases at earlier stages of the product life cycle and decreases at later stages. (2) The size of the price changes is larger in earlier stages than in the later stages. (3) The lowest prices change very frequently. (4) The lowest price decreases outnumber the lowest price increases. (5) The size of the lowest price changes is very small and is smaller when decreases occur than when increases occur.