To influence demand, some online retailers post messages (e.g., “5 units or less left in stock”) on their product pages to signal impending stockouts. These “scarcity” messages provide consumers “partial” inventory information, revealing only an upper bound on the number of units...

Several prominent Internet retailers provide real-time inventory-level information to online shoppers. Whereas this practice hints at retailers' belief that disclosed inventory information may induce demand, prior research in operations management and marketing have yielded conflicting views on...

Unlike in a traditional store environment where inventory is directly visible to customers, Internet retailers can selectively choose how to divulge inventory level information to customers. For example, when viewing a particular item page, online shoppers may either see merely “in stock” or...

Given varied consumer perceptions of inventory information, online retailers' presentation of such information influences purchase behavior. We investigate an online retailer's optimal inventory disclosure policy assuming two distinct consumer segments: savvy (or, experienced) consumers, who can...