Daily deal websites help small local merchants to attract new consumers. A strategy adopted by some websites is to continually track and display the number of deals sold by a merchant. We investigate the strategic implications of displaying deal sales and the website's incentive to implement...

Increased sales due to promotions could be at the expense of competitors: such sales come from consumers with relatively weak brand preferences. However, increased sales from brand loyal consumers could well cannibalize sales of the promoted brand. An unintended consequence of promotions is that...

An examination of brand prices in several categories reveals that the distribution of prices is multimodal, with firms offering shallow and deep discounts. Another interesting feature of these distributions is that they may have holes in the interior of the support. These pricing distributions...

The authors study the joint effects of creative format, message content, and targeting on the performance of digital ads over time. Specifically, they present a dynamic model to measure the effects of different sized static (GIF) and animated (Flash) display ad formats; and consider whether...

By making new product preannouncements (NPP) firms encourage consumers to postpone purchase and wait for the firms' new product that in turn cannibalizes current sales, both own and competitor's. Profitability of NPP depends on which firm's sales are cannibalized and relative margins on current...

It is increasingly common for a website, often referred to as a cash back site, to inform and enable consumers to avail of discounts at competing retail stores. Thus, consumers who visit a cash back site are able to take advantage of discounts at retail stores that are not available unless they...

Merchants are wary of a platform entering as a competitor and adversely affecting sales and margins. A platform wanting to maximize profits is interested also in gaining consumer trust and confidence by providing credible quality information to consumers. As a practical matter, could a...