Through reimbursing a portion of the transactional amount to some consumers in a form of cashback, merchants are able to exercise third-degree price discrimination by offering two asymmetric prices via an online dual channel. To better understand such a novel pricing mechanism, we develop a game...

This research examines the economic impact of membership-based free shipping programs (MFS) when introduced as an augmentation to widely accepted contingent free shipping policies (CFS). Under CFS, consumers waive the shipping surcharge if the order exceeds a certain threshold, whereas, under...

This research studies the performance of geofencing, a practice where mobile users are targeted within a pre-defined virtual geographic boundary around an advertiser's establishment. We argue the significance of distance (i.e., the mileage from a consumer to a focal establishment) and local...

This research examines the role of online anonymity in shaping herding behavior in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending markets. Drawing on theories from social psychology literature, we argue that a lender forms different credibility perceptions toward preceding peers per their anonymity status, and then...

In lending-based real estate crowdfunding, borrowers are required to pledge their housing properties as collateral to secure the loans. This nascent practice differs from ordinary peer-to-peer (P2P) lending in that lenders, to make sound decisions, need to evaluate additional information other...

The ever-increasing volume of user-generated content (UGC) makes discovery of quality ones more and more challenging for content consumers. To mitigate the issue, content sites started to introduce social networks that are exclusive for providers. In such directed networks, a content provider...

This research studies the effect of “disconfirmation” — the discrepancy between the expected and experienced assessment of the same product — on the behavior of consumers leaving online product reviews. We propose a modeling framework in which an individual’s pre-purchase expectation...