Long queues in seasonal sales shopping are seemingly undesirable for shoppers and retailers. Yet, this paper proposes that shoppers' impatience can be a virtue for retailers. It shows that, when shoppers do queue, it is desirable under some conditions for retailers to strategically keep the...

Examining all widely-sold products in a large, national scanner database, we find that seasonality in demand is large, pervasive across product categories, and heterogeneous in its timing. Yet at seasonal frequencies prices fluctuate little, and typically, countercyclically, falling as demand...