We consider two broad categories of incentives by which a manufacturer can motivate its retailers to provide high customer satisfaction: (1) manufacturer assistance that reduces the retailer's cost of providing customer satisfaction (CS assistance); and (2) customer satisfaction index (CSI)...

In marketing durable goods, manufacturers use varying degrees of leasing and selling to consumers, e.g., cars, photo-copiers, personal computers, airplanes, etc. The question that this raises is whether the distinction between leases and sales is simply one of price, or whether the proportion of...

Although negotiating over prices with sellers is common in many markets such as automobiles, furniture, services, consumer electronics, etc., it is not clear how a haggling price policy can help a firm gain a strategic advantage or whether it is even sustainable in a competitive market. In this...

Durable goods manufacturers often design product lines by segmenting their markets on quality attributes—attributes that exhibit a “more is better” property for all consumers. Since products within a product line are partial substitutes, and consumers can self-select the products they want...

With the increase in new product introductions in consumer packaged goods categories, supermarkets are reluctant to accept new products. Therefore, it is very important for manufacturers to convince retailers of the high-demand potential of their products. We study how a high-demand manufacturer...

We study the signalling strategy of a principal who is privately informed about its high demand potential to an uninformed risk-neutral agent. We analyze the model in the context of a contract between a franchisor and a franchisee. We examine the distortions of a two-part pricing scheme...

The marketing literature on product warranty and extended warranty has largely focused on their role as segmentation instruments in risk-averse consumer markets. Preserving this insurance rationale, we highlight the role of extended warranty in channel coordination. We derive explicit demand...

No abstract available.

Digital rights management (DRM) is an important yet controversial issue in the information goods markets. Although DRM is supposed to help copyright owners by protecting digital content from illegal copying or distribution, it is controversial because DRM imposes restrictions on even legal...