Economic growth in many countries is increasingly driven by successful startups that operate as online platforms. These success stories have motivated us to define and classify various online platforms according to their business models. This study discusses strategic and operational issues...

Online shoppers often prefer to return items to stores (or “offline return”) than to mail them back. We study a new business practice, return partnership, wherein online retailers partner with store retailers to offer offline returns. We seek to identify when return partnerships benefit both...