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Abstract
Despite the well-known idea that rice is a commodity and
thus it is unlikely to be differentiated, there is a large number of rice
products available in the retail market, with different classification,
standards, packages, brands etc. It can be observed significant variation
in their prices, considering the brands, manufacturers, stores and also
when the same product is considered in a short interval of time. Before
these findings, we asked what the effects of rice purchasing strategies
are over consumers’ expenditures. This paper proposes a mathematical
model to simulate the decision process of rice purchasing by consumers
with different preferences, in front of products available in supermarkets
in a city of Sao Paulo state and another in Rio Grande do Sul state
(Brazil).