Article
Engineering, Manufacturing
Xingyue (Luna) Zhang, James A. Dearden, Yuliang Yao
Summary: This study develops a game-theoretic model to analyze how online retail firms manage stockouts in the presence of substitute products. The results demonstrate the strategic marketing complementarity of prices and product recommender systems. The study also explores the impact of correlated stockouts and the cost-effectiveness of implementing better recommender systems.
PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
(2022)
Article
Economics
Yi He, Qingyun Xu, Zhen Shao
Summary: This study examines the strategy of online-first retailers opening offline channels to improve consumer experience in the omnichannel retail environment. The Ship-from-Store option provides quick logistics services for time-sensitive consumers, and pricing decisions are adjusted based on consumer time sensitivity and transportation costs.
TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH PART E-LOGISTICS AND TRANSPORTATION REVIEW
(2021)
Article
Management
Jie Wei, Meijing Chang
Summary: This paper investigates the combined effect of channel role and price self-matching strategy in a mixed market that includes a multichannel retailer and an online-only retailer. The results show that the multichannel retailer benefits from price self-matching when the two retailers have symmetrical channel roles, but not when the multichannel retailer is the channel leader. It is also found that when the multichannel retailer adopts price self-matching, raising online retail prices benefits the online-only retailer by dampening online competition. Furthermore, the impact of asymmetric channel roles on online competition and the promotion effect of price self-matching on the online-only retailer's profit depend on consumer's product valuation and horizontal differentiation.
JOURNAL OF THE OPERATIONAL RESEARCH SOCIETY
(2023)
Article
Management
Ting Chen, Xiaolong Guo, Feng Yang, Lin Tian
Summary: Bundling has become an important tool for online retail platforms to attract consumers, however, empirical results show that bundle discounts negatively impact consumers' perceived value of individual products. This study investigates the effect of valuation discounts on the decision optimization of online retail platforms in bundling. The analysis suggests that mixed-leader bundling outperforms mixed-joint bundling under certain conditions due to the negative effects of valuation discounts.
JOURNAL OF THE OPERATIONAL RESEARCH SOCIETY
(2023)
Article
Business
Jianghua Wu, Chenchen Zhao
Summary: Online businesses are important within the retail industry and have fierce competition with offline retailers. This study compares pricing strategies, profits, consumer surplus, and social welfare between online and offline retailers in scenarios with and without a randomized pricing strategy for the online retailer. The model suggests that randomized pricing can benefit both offline retailers and social welfare, but not consumer surplus. Consumer behavior and offline retailer adjustment strategies are also discussed.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
(2023)
Article
Business
Zonghuo Li, Di Wang, Wensheng Yang, Hyun Seung Jin
Summary: This paper investigates three omnichannel retailing models and coupon distribution scenarios to compare profits and strategies. Results show that increasing purchasing and service effort have positive impacts on retailer profits. The Showroom model has the highest service effort and coupon value but the lowest profit; the BOPS model has the highest profit despite lower service effort investment. The Interactive model increases profit by providing coupons with a common value for different channels.
JOURNAL OF RETAILING AND CONSUMER SERVICES
(2022)
Article
Business
Xu Chen, Zheng Luo, Xiaojun Wang
Summary: In this article, we investigate alternative commission pricing strategies in online platform sales. Through game modeling and equilibrium solutions, we analyze the economic results for the online platform and vendors. Our findings reveal that vendors can take actions to maximize their own benefit and competing vendors can respond to their rival's choices to minimize negative impact. We also find that the leader vendor's exclusive pricing right results in a higher commission fee paid to the online platform. Overall, our study shows the adaptability of a combined theoretical strategy in interfirm networks.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
(2022)
Article
Business
Gajendra Liyanaarachchi
Summary: Data privacy poses a threat to the future of e-commerce, as consumers struggle to balance the risks and benefits associated with online privacy. A study interviewed 30 Millennials from 13 countries to examine the influence of national culture on information disclosure attitudes in online retailing, presenting a novel framework, the Privacy Paradox Pyramid, to manage the privacy paradox through the lens of national culture and enable retailers to create a competitive advantage by segmenting customers and designing tailored approaches.
JOURNAL OF RETAILING AND CONSUMER SERVICES
(2021)
Article
Engineering, Manufacturing
O. Cem Ozturk, Necati Tereyagoglu
Summary: An increase in distribution channel relationship asymmetry may lead to higher retail prices and increased market competition. For manufacturers, this effect becomes more positive with larger manufacturer size and when the manufacturer is a public company; however, it becomes less positive when strategic similarity among manufacturers increases.
PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
(2022)
Article
Business
Sarah Moshary, Anna Tuchman, Natasha Vajravelu
Summary: This paper investigates the gender-based pricing for personal care products and finds that gender segmentation is ubiquitous. The study demonstrates that men's and women's products made by the same manufacturer sustain large price differences due to product differentiation. However, in a comparison of women's and men's products with similar ingredients, there is no evidence of a systematic price premium for women's goods.
Correction
Business
Jinyi Liu, Tingliang Huang
Summary: In this paper, it is proven analytically that the sufficient condition stated in proposition 3 of Zhou and Zou (2023) is never satisfied. A new sufficient condition that does hold is provided, and its implications are discussed.
Article
Engineering, Industrial
Raunak Joshi, Sumanta Basu, Sreelata Jonnalagedda, Balram Avittathur
Summary: The retail market consists of both multichannel and pure online retailers. The choice of channel for multichannel retailers, whether it be brick-and-mortar store, online channel, or both, is influenced by investment in fit-disclosing technologies by competing retailers. The importance of physically verifying a product and the likelihood of visiting physical stores also play a role in the decision-making process.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRODUCTION ECONOMICS
(2023)
Article
Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
Ya-Ling Chiu, Yuan-Teng Hsu, Xiaoyu Mao, Jying-Nan Wang
Summary: The study compares price discounts between Third-Party Marketplace (3PM) sellers and Fulfilled by Walmart (FBW) sellers on Walmart.com during the holiday season, revealing that FBW sellers offer significantly higher average discounts than 3PM sellers in certain categories, with discounts increasing as the holiday season progresses. These findings can help retailers manage relationships with third-party sellers and assist consumers in making informed purchasing decisions.
Article
Business
Heli Hallikainen, Milena Luongo, Amandeep Dhir, Tommi Laukkanen
Summary: This study investigates how personalized product recommendations and price promotions compensate for the negative impact of perceived cognitive effort on loyalty in online grocery retailing. The results demonstrate that personalized price promotions can mitigate the negative impact, while personalized product recommendations have minimal influence. These findings contribute to a better understanding of personalized marketing activities in today's data-driven online grocery retail industry.
JOURNAL OF RETAILING AND CONSUMER SERVICES
(2022)
Article
Business
Zonghuo Li, Wensheng Yang, Hyun Seung Jin, Di Wang
Summary: The distribution of coupons may not always increase market share, and intense channel competition may reduce market volume. When conducting coupon promotions, retailers may adjust prices based on the competitive situation in different channels to maximize profits.
JOURNAL OF RETAILING AND CONSUMER SERVICES
(2021)
Article
Agricultural Economics & Policy
Koichi Yonezawa, Miguel I. Gomez, Timothy J. Richards
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS
(2020)
Article
Agricultural Economics & Policy
Timothy J. Richards
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS
(2020)
Article
Agricultural Economics & Policy
Lauren Chenarides, Mark Manfredo, Timothy J. Richards
Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic revealed critical weaknesses in the US food supply chain, highlighting the importance of supply chain flexibility. Short-term losses during the pandemic could have been avoided by increasing flexibility within supply chains.
APPLIED ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES AND POLICY
(2021)
Article
Agriculture, Multidisciplinary
Alfons Weersink, Mike von Massow, Nicholas Bannon, Jennifer Ifft, Josh Maples, Ken McEwan, Melissa G. S. McKendree, Charles Nicholson, Andrew Novakovic, Anusuya Rangarajan, Timothy Richards, Bradley Rickard, James Rude, Meagan Schipanski, Gary Schnitkey, Lee Schulz, Daniel Schuurman, Karen Schwartzkopf-Genswein, Mark Stephenson, Jada Thompson, Katie Wood
Summary: North American agri-food supply chains showed vulnerability at the beginning of the pandemic, but have since rebounded to near normal conditions. The specialization in supply chain design led to initial disruptions but also facilitated a rapid recovery. Future trends may include greater consolidation of firms, structural changes in input markets, and increased demand for attributes associated with resiliency.
AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS
(2021)
Article
Agricultural Economics & Policy
Timothy J. Richards, Bradley J. Rickard
Summary: This study examines the impact of craft brewery acquisitions on retail beer prices and firm profitability, finding that the estimates of mergers are closely related to the state-dependence in demand. It concludes that not all craft-beer buyouts in 2015 made economic sense from the acquirer's perspective.
Article
Agricultural Economics & Policy
Lauren Chenarides, Timothy J. Richards, Bradley Rickard
Summary: The article focuses on key indicators of input and output market performance in Canadian fruit and vegetable markets, providing insights into how these markets are adjusting in the medium and long term. Data highlights recent trends in production and movement, labor supply, immigration visa patterns, and trade patterns between the United States and Canada for fruits and vegetables, showing a relatively robust fresh produce supply chain in Canada and its largest trade partner, the United States.
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS-REVUE CANADIENNE D AGROECONOMIE
(2021)
Article
Engineering, Manufacturing
Lina Wang, Elliot Rabinovich, Timothy J. Richards
Summary: This study examines the economic viability of online platforms for local foods subject to indirect network effects, finding that these platforms can serve as viable alternatives for the commercialization of local foods. However, it also reveals the existence of nonlinearity and non-monotonic effects in the strength of indirect network effects.
PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
(2022)
Article
Agricultural Economics & Policy
Timothy J. Richards, Stephen F. Hamilton
Summary: Food waste accounts for 40% of supply-chain waste, and factors such as competitive pricing, assortment size, and efficiency contribute to this waste. Salesforce discretion in delivering less-than-ordered amounts is an important way for management to directly influence supply-chain loss. These findings are valuable for managers and policymakers in the food and beverage supply chain.
Article
Agricultural Economics & Policy
Lauren Chenarides, Metin Cakir, Timothy J. Richards
Summary: Dollar stores are experiencing rapid growth in the United States, but their entry into markets without grocery stores has sparked controversy and prompted concerns about preemptive incentives. This paper examines dollar store entry as an equilibrium phenomenon and its impact on competing store formats. Using census-tract level data and a dynamic model of oligopolistic competition, the study finds that dollar store expansion benefits supermarkets and other large-format stores while negatively affecting other small-format stores. These findings have significant implications for consumer welfare, highlighting the displacement of small-format stores rather than grocery stores by dollar store entry.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS
(2023)
Article
Management
John D. Lowrey, Timothy J. Richards, Stephen F. Hamilton
Summary: The management of perishable food near its expiration is a challenge for grocery retailers. Donating food to food banks is socially responsible, benefiting local communities and reducing waste. This paper examines the economic impact of this secondary food market by studying donation and pricing behaviors of competing retailers.
M&SOM-MANUFACTURING & SERVICE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
(2023)
Review
Agricultural Economics & Policy
Timothy J. Richards, Simba Pasirayi
Summary: This article provides an overview of the structural changes in food retailing in developing economies, and examines the reasons behind the evolution of retailers as well as their impact on suppliers and consumers. The article proposes avenues for future research and highlights significant gaps in the existing empirical literature.
Article
Agricultural Economics & Policy
Timothy J. Richards, Zachariah Rutledge
Summary: Historically, pandemics lead to labor shortages, and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-21 proved to be no different. The shortage of labor in producing, processing, and delivering food to consumers during the pandemic has resulted in greater bargaining power by workers in the food and agriculture industry. This study examines the association between the COVID-19 pandemic and increased bargaining power among food and agriculture workers, and analyzes the impact of policy responses on labor-market outcomes. The findings show a 5.7% increase in bargaining power for employed workers during the pandemic, and demonstrate the effects of minimum wages and unemployment insurance on equilibrium wages.
Article
Business
William J. Allender, Jura Liaukonyte, Sherif Nasser, Timothy J. Richards
Summary: This study examines the profitability conditions for firms using price obfuscation, and the impact of price obfuscation on consumer fairness concerns, consumer demand, and equilibrium pricing strategies. Findings suggest that obfuscation can effectively reduce peer-induced fairness concerns and increase sellers' pricing power.
Article
Agricultural Economics & Policy
Timothy J. Richards, Stephen F. Hamilton
EUROPEAN REVIEW OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS
(2020)
Article
Economics
Timothy J. Richards, Gordon J. Klein, Celine Bonnet, Zohra Bouamra-Mechemache
REVIEW OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION
(2020)