Price fluctuation analysis in e-commerce sector during disaster period: A case study in Turkey

Today's revenue management approach allows customers to analyze the competitive situation more intelligently and in a shorter time by obtaining many comparative data on the internet. Shopping done in the physical environments of stores has been replaced by online shopping through e-commerce sites in recent years, due to both the physical fatigue experienced by customers and the fact that they evaluate price alternatives at more relative and higher prices. While e-commerce has become more preferred in recent years, especially because it saves time for customers, the trend of preference has increased with the closures experienced worldwide due to the COVID-19 epidemic. Dynamic pricing has become a very attractive and frequently used strategy for online shopping sites in recent years. This approach, which brings high profit amounts to institutions when applied correctly, is preferred by many companies to create a competitive advantage. Due to the price information collected from different sites, the price on the internet becomes the consumer's main determinant of the product, and therefore customers focus more on the price. Within the scope of this study, the prices of the best-selling products in the categories of beverages, electronic devices and hygiene products on a widely preferred online shopping site in Turkey, the prices applied during the first, second and third surge periods of the COVID-19 period and the earthquake period that affected 11 provinces. examined within the framework of online pricing approaches. In order to determine the periods most affected by income management approaches among disaster periods, AHP and TOPSIS, multi-criteria decisionmaking methods, were used depending on different criteria. Keywords: E-Commerce Sector, Revenue Management, Dynamic Pricing, AHP, TOPSIS