Retail Discount Concurrency – Favor Retailer

In an early post, we talked about the best deal for the customer. Now, we’re talking about something opposite: best deal for the retailer, or worse deal for the customer. It’s still a knapsack problem: apply as many discounts as possible, but get the least value. One twist is that you need to stuff your knapsack as much as possible, i.e. until you cannot pack in one more.

As always, example: same mix and match for $20 keyboards and $10 mice: buy one get (least expensive) one free.

If you buy 2 keyboards and 2 mice, how much discount would you expect as a customer?

If retail gives you $20 off total, what could you do to beat that?

Next time shopping, pay attention when there is more than one possibility of constructing the discount deal.

Related: Retail Discount Concurrency – Best Deal Knapsack Problem