This paper studies the pre-order strategy that a seller may use to sell a perishable product in an uncertain market with heterogeneous consumers. By accepting pre-orders, the seller is able to obtain advance demand information for inventory planning and price-discriminate the consumers. Given...

We study a buyer's sourcing strategy along two dimensions: the supply base design and the pricing mechanism, considering supplier competition and cost-reduction e ffort. The supply base design concerns the number of suppliers (one or two) included in the supply base, and the capacity to be...

We consider a buyer sourcing from multiple competing suppliers who exert cost reduction efforts before procurement contracts are awarded. The supply chain is subject to the classic hold-up problem--as the lack of a contract commitment hinders suppliers' incentives to make investment...