We present a review of research studies that deal with personalization. We synthesize current knowledge about these areas, and identify issues that we envision will be of interest to researchers working in the management sciences. We take an interdisciplinary approach that spans the areas of...

In the past several decades, new-product diffusion models has been an active area of research in marketing (see, e.g., Mahajan, Muller, and Wind 2000, and Mahajan and Wind 1986). Such models are useful because they can provide important insights into the timing of initial purchase of new...

In the past several years, researchers have started to notice successful products whose sales patterns show rapidly declining diffusion patterns. These products include certain movies, computer software, TV game software, music CDs, etc. (e.g., Windows95 (up grade version), Final Fantasy,...

Designing and pricing new products is one of the most critical activities for a firm, and it is well-known that taking into account consumer preferences for design decisions is essential for products later to be successful in a competitive environment (e.g., Urban and Hauser 1993). Consequently,...

Consumers purchase conspicuous goods to satisfy not just material needs but also social needs such as prestige. In an attempt to meet these social needs, marketing managers of conspicuous goods like cars, perfumes, and watches employ several strategies to highlight the exclusivity of their...

Are price-matching guarantees anticompetitive? This paper examines the incentives for price-matching guarantees in markets where information about prices is costly. Under some conditions the conventional explanation of price-matching announcements as facilitating collusion finds support, and is...

Internet referral services, hosted either by independent third-party infomediaries or by manufacturers serve as ``lead-generators'' in electronic marketplaces, directing consumer traffic to particular retailers. The conventional wisdom on Internet referral services is that they are valuable to...

A large literature in economics and marketing studies the problem of manufacturer's designing contracts that give a retailer appropriate incentives to make decisions that are optimal from the manufacturer's point of view (see, for example, Spengler 1950, Jeuland and Shugan 1983, McGuire and...

Sweepstakes and contests are an extremely common promotional strategy used by firms. The sweepstakes and contests often differ significantly in the design of reward structure. For example, in 1999, Godiva Chocolates conducted a sweepstakes where one box of chocolates contained a diamond...

The Internet has dramatically reduced search costs for customers through tools such as shopbots. The conventional wisdom is that this reduction in search costs will increase price competition leading to a decline in prices and profits for online firms. In this paper, we provide an argument for...