E-commerce platforms, such as Amazon, Alibaba and Flipkart, that match sellers and consumers at an unprecedented scale, operate their internal search engines to help buyers find relevant products from a large number of sellers, and also allow sellers to advertise to consumers for positions in...

The majority of theoretical vertical differentiation models in the literature derive equilibrium prices that exhibit what we call an “adverse price effect:” for a low quality firm, the equilibrium price may decrease when the product quality increases. This seemingly counterintuitive...

We examine the intersection of two major trends at online retail platforms: the emergence of retail media, which allows sellers to advertise on retail platforms alongside selling their products, and the platforms' switch away from reselling towards marketplace formats. We study whether and when...

We explore how the three dimensional (3D) technologies on the Internet, implemented as virtual worlds, can be used to deliver e-service. Our aim is to study how this 3D medium differs from the traditional 2D websites and how this can be exploited to deliver online service. We set up a field...

We study the optimal algorithm decisions of a platform on ranking products sold by sellers--who may use fake sales to boost the rankings of their products--and the impact on consumers and sellers. We design a model of an online retail marketplace with competing sellers. The platform decides...

The Internet has changed the nature of doing business as well as the nature of competition in many industries. The number of online transactions has seen a steady increase as more consumers turn to online retailing (e-tailing) for a wide range of product choices and shopping convenience. Yet,...