In theory, e-commerce marketplaces connect buyers and sellers, open trade opportunities, and reduce transaction costs thereby creating opportunities for more inclusive trade and even GVC participation, especially for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Further, there is some...

We formulate the problem of designing a personalized recommendation system for an online business-to-business (B2B) marketplace, propose a method to solve it, and evaluate results using field experiments. In this problem, buyers place requests for quotation (RFQs) to the platform, sellers...

Conceptually, customer relationship value depends on customer perceptions of the cost of switching to another supplier. Empirical tests of switching cost effects have been hampered because traditional performance measurement systems and customer satisfaction scores do not reflect switching cost...

Manufacturer-retailer relationships are often cited as an important determinant in product distribution. By coordinating the channel and aligning incentives, relationships can significantly affect both manufacturers’ and retailers’ profits and contribute to market concentration. However,...

While vertical firms dominate the fashion markets worldwide since years, only little research is done on vertical alliances between non-vertical retailer and manufacturing companies in this sector. These paper analyses vertical alliances from the perspective of 98 traditional fashion retailers...

How do firms' partnering strategies impact the size of their partner-based retail networks? We draw on agency theory to address this question in the context of franchising. Our econometric analyses, (based on nine years of longitudinal balanced panel data), include assessment of data...

Trade promotions provided to retailers from suppliers are not well understood and have not been consistently reported by manufacturers. Research about the phenomenon has consequently been limited and neither the trade nor government agencies fully understand the phenomenon and its implications....

We consider a model of vertical competition where downstream firms (retailers) purchase an upstream input from a monopolist and are able to differentiate from each other in terms of quality. Our primary focus is to study the effects of introducing a large retailer, such as a Wal-Mart...

The paper explores an efficiency hypothesis regarding the contractual process between large retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour, and their suppliers. The empirical evidence presented supports the idea that large retailers play a quasi-judicial role, acting as "courts of first instance" in...