A common sales tactic is for a seller to encourage a potential customer to make her purchase decision quickly. We consider a market with sequential consumer search in which firms often encourage first-time visitors to buy immediately, either by making an “exploding offer” (which permits no...

A common sales tactic is for a seller to encourage a potential customer to make her purchase decision quickly. We consider a market with sequential consumer search in which firms often encourage first-time visitors to buy immediately, either by making an “exploding offer” (which permits no...

A seller wishes to prevent the discovery of rival offers by its prospective customers.  We study sales techniques which serve this purpose by making it harder for a customer to return to buy later after a search for alternatives.  These include making an exploding offer, offering a "buy-now"...

A common sales tactic is for a seller to encourage a potential customer to make her purchase decision quickly, before she can investigate rival deals in the market.  We consider a market with sequential consumer search in which firms can achieve this either by making an exploding offer (which...

We consider a market in which firms can partially observe each consumer's search behavior in the market. In our main model, a firm knows whether a consumer is visiting it for the first time or whether she is returning after a previous visit. Firms have an incentive to offer a lower price on a...

We consider a market with sequential consumer search in which firms can distinguish potential customers visiting for the first time from returning visitors. We show that firms often have an incentive to make it costly for its visitors to return after investigating rivals, either by making an...