We consider the price and welfare effects of competition in targeted product design, in the context of the Salop circle model. Changes in product design lead to demand rotations that set the stage for our analysis. With an exogenous number of firms, we show that the degree of targeted product...

We study a widely used ordering process (“Early Bird Discounts”) whereby a profit-maximizing manufacturer permits his dealers to place advance orders at a discount before they set retail prices. We show that such discounts may be used to shift just enough channel profits to dealers to enable...

This paper shows that the correlation between the Net Promoter Score and consumers Willingness To Pay in five European mobile markets is very strong. The Net Promoter Score is provided by a survey and the Willingness To Pay is calculated from the “Spokes Model” which is an economic model...

This paper provides a theory to explain how recent phenomena in the retailing industry, such as electronic data interchange, continuous replenishment, and consignment sales, are related to mitigating agency costs in a distribution channel. These phenomena are linked to the manufacturer?s ability...

Using a model of sequential search, we show that announcements to price-match raise prices by altering consumer search behavior. First, price-matching diminishes firms' incentives to lower prices to attract consumers who have no search costs. Second, for consumers with positive search costs,...

Price-matching guarantees (PMGs) are offered in a wide array of product categories in retail markets. PMGs offer consumers the assurance that, should they find a lower price elsewhere within a specified period after purchase, the retailer will match that price and refund the price difference....

The price discrimination literature typically makes the assumption of no consumer arbitrage. This assumption is increasingly violated in the digital economy, where coupons are traded with increased frequency online. In this paper, we analyze the welfare impacts of coupon trading using a modified...

We investigate the situation where a customer experiencing an inventory stockout at a retailer potentially leaves the firm's market. In classical inventory theory, a unit stockout penalty cost has been used as a surrogate to mimic the economic effect of such a departure; in this study, we...

Data brokers share consumer data with rivals and, at the same time, compete with them for selling. We propose a “co-opetition” game of data brokers and characterise their optimal strategies. When data are “sub-additive” with the merged value net of the merging cost being lower than the...

Firms are increasingly using technology to enable targeted, or "personalized" pricing strategies. In settings where prices are transparent to all consumers, however, there is the potential that inter-personal price differences will be perceived as inherently unfair. In response, firms may...