We develop a model of crowdfunding dynamics that maximizes revenue for a given fundraising campaign by optimizing both the pledge level sought from donors or backers and the duration of the campaign. Our model aligns with the patterns of backer/donor arrival and pledging observed on crowdfunding...

Customers often wait in queues before being served. Since waiting is undesirable, customers may come back later (i.e., retry) when the queue is too long. However, retrial attempts can be costly due to transportation fees and service delays. This paper introduces a framework for rational retrial...

In many service settings, customers have to join the queue without being fully aware of the parameters of the service provider (for e.g., customers at check-out counters may not know the true service rate prior to joining). In such “blind queues”, customers make their joining/balking...

The Tuscan Lifestyles case (Mason 2003) offers a simple twist on the standard view of how to value a newly acquired customer, highlighting how standard retention-based approaches to the calculation of expected CLV are not applicable in a noncontractual setting. Using the data presented in the...

We study the bidding strategies of vertically differentiated firms that bid for sponsored search advertisement positions for a keyword at a search engine. We explicitly model how consumers navigate and click on sponsored links based on their knowledge and beliefs about firm qualities. Our model...

Several researchers have proposed models of buyer behavior in noncontractual settings that assume that customers are "alive" for some period of time and then become permanently inactive. The best-known such model is the Pareto/NBD, which assumes that customer attrition (dropout or "death") can...

While millions of products are sold on its retail platform, Amazon.com itself stocks and sells only a very small fraction of them. Most of these products are sold by third-party sellers who pay Amazon a fee for each unit sold. Empirical evidence clearly suggests that Amazon tends to sell...

We propose a framework for the joint study of the consumer’s decision of where to buy and what to buy. The framework is rooted in utility theory where the utility is for a particular channel/brand combination. The framework contains firm actions, the consumer search process, the choice...