Retailers often face a newsvendor problem, i.e., they must order their inventory prior to a short selling period with uncertain demand. The uncertainty can be reduced by advance selling because not only are advance orders certain, but the remaining demand can be better forecasted. Consumers,...

We develop a game-theoretic model to explore why retail clusters are so popular in developing economies and when governments should facilitate the formation of retail clusters to improve social welfare. First, we find two determinants of retailer clusters: valuation-cost ratio (consumers'...

We consider a dual channel supply chain in which a manufacturer sells a single product to end-users through both a traditional retail channel and a manufacturer-owned direct online channel. We adopt a commonly used linear demand substitution model in which the mean demand in each channel is a...

With the development of the Internet and E-commerce, retailers often offer pre-orders for new to-be-released products. To encourage pre-orders, retailers such as Amazon offer pre-order price guarantee (PG). That is, if the product price drops before or on the release date, pre-order consumers...

Microtransactions for functional items bring mixed results for game publishers. It is not clear why microtransactions are successful with FIFA 20 and Clash of Clans, but not with Star Wars Battle Front II. The effects of players' fairness concerns on a publisher's strategy are investigated. A...

Firms in service and make-to-order manufacturing industries often quote lead times and prices to customers. We define uniform quotation mode (UQM) as the strategy where a firm offers a single lead time and price quotation, and differentiated quotation mode (DQM) is where a firm offers a menu of...

Is demand uncertainty a devil? A conventional thought is that demand uncertainty hurts a seller's profit. However, we show that demand uncertainty could favor a seller if the pricing mechanism is designed properly. Specifically, we study the optimal pricing strategy in advance selling with both...

Mobile carriers used to enforce service contracts on consumers. However, recently major mobile carriers have eliminated contracts. We investigate carriers' contract and marketing strategies. We identify Expectation-Reality Discrepancy (ERD) as a key determinant. A carrier's ERD is defined as...