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“价格战”的特点是竞争厂商努力削弱彼此的价格。价格战是一个普遍的现象，涉及几乎每一个行业-电信，零售，航空公司，杂货店。价格战的一个场景是在市场的情况下，其中一些玩家的竞争，以获得更大的市场份额，主要是降低商品或服务的价格。
在短期内，这似乎是有利可图的，因为它有助于组织获得更大的市场份额更高的市场渗透。客户也将获得从这些价格战在短期内，因为他们能够受益于竞争公司提供的价格的下降螺旋。从长远来看，价格战导致了一些较小的公司倒闭，因为他们不能继续在这样低的利润率，如占主导地位的公司可以。这将导致在市场上的玩家数量的减少，这反过来又可能导致商品/服务的价格上升到一个比价格战开始前的水平。因此，无论谁赢，双方都似乎结束了。尽管如此，价格战的强度变得越来越普遍和激烈。

Introduction 简介
'Price wars' are characterized by competing firms struggling to undercut one another's prices (Assael, 1990). Price wars are a universal phenomenon that touches nearly every industry - telecommunication, retail, airlines, groceries. A scenario of price wars comes into existence in a market situation wherein a number of players compete to gain a larger share of the market by primarily reducing the price of goods or services that they are selling. Companies find price as a logical weapon of choice because it is easy to change fast (Kalra, Raju and Srinivasan, 1998). In the short run, this may seem profitable as it helps the organization gain a larger market share by higher market penetration. The customers also stands to gain from these price wars in the short run, as they are able to benefit from the downward spiral of prices offered by the competing firms. However, in the long run, price wars prove to be suicidal for the firms engaging in it and for their customers too. Price wars in the long run lead to a number of smaller firms to shut down, as they cannot continue to operate at such low profit margins like dominant firms can. This leads to a reduction in the number of players in the market, which in turn might lead to an increase in prices of the goods / services to a level higher than it was before the onset of the price wars. Thus no matter who wins , the combatants all seem to end up worse off than before they joined battle ( Akshay Rao, Mark Bergen & Scott Davis , 2000) Despite this fact , price wars are becoming more common and fiercer in their intensity.

While multiple causes such as change in strategy within a set of oligopolists , demand fluctuations , financial situation of the initiator, price image improvement or industry rationalization can be attributed to initiation of a price war , however, research shows that most price wars are caused either by wrong assessment of market signals or misunderstanding of your competitor's motives. When price war is used as deliberate tactic, firms need to assess their financial situation and weigh the cost of a price war on present vs future gains and losses (Meghan Busse, 2002).

The threat of price war is real in today's global and ultra competitive market. Since price wars affect profitability and the very survival of companies, they need to be prepared to meet this challenge. Companies that have survived price wars have invariably broken free from the 'lowest cost' syndrome and focussed on innovation and creative ways to reinvent and reframe the way to do business.

Why do price wars start?
Profit maximization and market penetration are the key parameters that determine the success of a firm. In their battle to capture customers , companies use a variety of tactics, however price appears to be a weapon of choice as it is fast to execute and reversible (Akshay Rao, Mark Bergen & Scott Davis , 2000).

Price wars occur due to a variety of reasons not restricted to any one industry or to the lowest priced supplier. In market segments where produ