A typical strategy for dealing with commodity surpluses is to store them for future sale; in particular, this is true of electricity. However, because electricity prices can be negative, there exists another potential strategy: To buy and dispose of electricity surpluses at negative prices. It is...

We study the pricing and return policy decisions of an omnichannel retailer serving customers who differ in how they realize their uncertain valuation for a product -- by inspecting in-store before purchase, or by purchasing online and possibly returning misfit products. Customers may return...

(1) Problem definition: Utility regulators are grappling to devise compensation schemes for customers who sell rooftop solar generation back to the grid, balancing environmental interests and the financial interests of utilities, solar system installers, and retail customers. This is difficult:...

In service settings such as multiple listing for organ transplants and supermarkets with multiple checkout lines, some customers join multiple queues simultaneously, enabling them to receive service in any one of the queues. We study fairness in these systems: Does such multiple queue-joining...

Consider a buyer, facing uncertain demand, who sources from multiple suppliers via online procurement auctions (open descending price-only auctions). The suppliers have heterogeneous production costs, which are private information, and the winning supplier has to invest in production capacity...

Discretionary service industries are those in which customers prefer not to wait in line, but also derive more value from a longer service time; this is common in healthcare interactions or repair settings. In such settings, the service provider often can obtain not only a fixed fee for the...

Caterpillar recently embarked on an ambitious program to radically change how it markets and sells key products of its Building Construction Products division (BCP). The goal was to move from a strict build-to-order strategy, in which customers selected one of millions of possible...