Price promotion landscape in the US and UK: Depicting retail practice to inform future research agenda

• Nearly half of all promotions are multiple-unit deal types.
• Yet, very few academic studies explore this type of deal.
• Different types of deals differ in the depths of discounts.
• Private labels have different promotion prevalence in different countries.
• There is an increase in promotional activity throughout and after the Global Financial Crisis.

Price promotions dominate the modern grocery retail environment. This paper documents the prevalence and nature of these price promotions (i.e., deal types and discount depths) in the United States and United Kingdom. The analysis comprises of 23 categories across five retail chains. One of the key findings is that multiple-unit promotions – deal types that have been under-researched – account for approximately half of all price promotion activity. The analysis also identifies an increase in price promotion prevalence since the Global Financial Crisis, predominantly driven by national brand promotions. This research carries important implications for the alignment of academic research with common industry practices.