Better targeting opportunities and the increasing role of information-intensive environments have created new challenges for firms in obtaining customer information. Such information can help firms increase their profits through cross-selling opportunities. However, revealing personal...

We develop a brand choice model with learning based on the Kalman filter methodology. The model enables us to separate the effects of contemporaneous marketing promotions from the impact of the perceived quality valuation accrued through product usage over time. We also account for idiosyncratic...

Consumer new product adoption and preference evolution or learning may be influenced by intrinsic or internal factors (e.g., usage experiences, personal characteristics), external influences (e.g., social effects, media), and marketing activities of the firm. Moreover, the preference evolution...

Although prior literature has examined reactions to drastic negative news, we examine the situation in which decision makers receive contradictory information about products and they have to decide whether to persist with or abandon product usage. We investigate physician reactions to...

We investigate the salesforce compensation strategy of a firm selling products in a category that several consumers find technically sophisticated, such as electronics or financial products with legal fine print. Consumers are unable to judge the value difference between a baseline product and a...

For products that require skills to use, such as computers, cell phones, and sports equipment, consumers’ purchase and usage decisions often depend on their prediction of the speed with which they will master the relevant skills. In this article, we identify a systematic pessimism in...

We examine purchases of extended service contracts, which are essentially insurance products, for electronic products in a retail setting. The primary insurance purchase determinants are perceived probability of loss, extent of loss, risk aversion, and amount of insurance premium. We examine how...

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...

In purchase situations where attribute information is either missing or difficult to judge, a well-known heuristic that consumers use to form evaluations is the halo effect. The psychology literature has widely considered the halo a reflection of consumers' inability to discriminate between...

Firms frequently position themselves as specialists. An implication of specialization is that the firm has forgone alternative opportunities. In the context of effort-intensive categories, we show that a firm can signal quality to consumers by specializing. In the model, a firm must decide to...