Theory of dogmatism,personality traits and shopping behavior

Drawing on the theory of dogmatism and personality traits, this research examines the consumers' shopping behavior and intentions. We propose a model, which incorporates the precepts of stubbornness and retail purchasing conduct. Data were gathered from 446 shoppers in India and analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings indicate that consumers' personality, purchaser conduct, narrowing conduct, and dependability influence their buying behavior. Moreover, consumers’ purchasing goals are influenced by assurance, customization, brand value, and social appeal. The study has practical implications for marketing managers who are focusing on customers with dogmatic behavior.     

Browse‐and‐Switch: Retail‐Online Competition under Value Uncertainty

Although online shopping is becoming popular, consumers who are unsure about whether to buy a product may find it advantageous to visit a brick‐and‐mortar retail store to first examine the product before purchasing it. But, after browsing at the store, consumers have the option of switching to an e‐tailer to purchase the item at a cheaper price rather than buying at the store. Recent business press refers to this browse‐and‐switch behavior as “showrooming,” and attributes to it the declining profits of brick‐and‐mortar retailers. To study the effect of the browse‐and‐switch option on retail and online pricing strategies and profits, we analyze a stylized economic model that incorporates uncertainty in consumers' valuation of the product, captures the heterogeneity among consumers in their inclination to purchase online, and permits product returns. We consider various equilibrium scenarios for different combinations of consumer shopping behaviors, characterize the parameter ranges for each scenario, and demonstrate that browse‐and‐switch behavior can indeed occur under equilibrium. Our analysis further shows that the option for consumers to browse‐and‐switch intensifies competition, reducing the profits for both firms.     

Advance Selling by a Newsvendor Retailer

Retailers often face a newsvendor problem. Advance selling helps retailers to reduce demand uncertainty. Consumers, however, may prefer not to purchase in advance unless given a discount because they are uncertain about their valuation for the product in advance. It is then unclear whether or when advance selling to pass some uncertainty risk to consumers is optimal for the retailer. This paper examines the advance selling price and inventory decisions in a two‐period setting, where the first period is the advance selling period and the second is the selling (and consumption) period. We find that an advance selling strategy is not always optimal, but is contingent on parameters of the market (e.g., market potential and uncertainty) and the consumers (e.g., valuation, risk aversion, and heterogeneity). For example, we find that retailers should sell in advance if the consumers' expected valuation exceeds consumers' expected surplus when not buying early by a certain threshold. This threshold increases with the degree of risk aversion but decreases with stock out risk. If the degree of risk aversion varies across consumers, then a retailer should sell in advance if the probability for a consumer to spot buy is less than a critical fractile.     

移动电子商务下交易成本影响消费者感知价值的实证研究

在分析了移动电子商务下交易成本的主要构成后,论文提出了搜寻成本、评价成本、支付成本、风险成本对消费者感知价值影响的假设,构建了移动电子商务下交易成本对消费者感知价值影响的假设模型,采用结构方程模型方法利用样本数据对假设模型进行了拟合检验。研究结果表明,风险成本、支付成本、评价成本是移动电子商务下消费者网上购买商品的主要成本,均与消费者感知价值显著负相关,其中,风险成本与消费者感知价值相关程度最高,而搜寻成本对消费者感知价值的影响并不显著。此外,购物者的风险态度与其风险成本、评价成本显著正相关,通过对评价成本、风险成本的作用间接影响消费者感知价值。最后,依据研究结果,论文提出了促进我国移动电子商务发展的建议。     

具有线性交易成本的耐用性设备在线租赁策略分析

在设备寿命周期内,购买和使用结束后出售旧设备需要支付交易成本,交易成本与设备价格具有线性关系。分析显示:对于具有线性交易成本的耐用性设备在线租赁问题,如果不考虑在设备使用结束后出售旧设备的残值以降低成本,从租赁模式转换到购买模式的在线策略的转换时机,总是晚于考虑在设备使用结束后出售旧设备的在线策略;如果不考虑购买和使用后出售的交易成本,在线策略名义上的竞争比小于实际竞争比。     

In-Store Experimental Approach to Pricing and Consumer Behavior

This study assessed how, and to what extent, it is possible to use behavioral experimentation and relative sales analysis to study the effects of price on consumers' brand choices in the store environment. An in-store experiment was performed in four stores to investigate the effects of different prices of a target brand on consumers' relative buying behavior using an alternating treatment design with baseline. The intervention consisted of periodically reducing the target brand's price by 17–26%. Price reductions generally had none or minor effects. However, data for one store showed lower relative sales for the price reduction condition. These are surprising results and they underline the need to examine all of the marketing mix factors, not only price.     

Price Incentives and Coordination in a Two‐Product Decentralized Supply Chain

We investigate pricing incentives for competing retailers who distribute two variants of a manufacturer's product in a decentralized supply chain. Under a two‐dimensional Hotelling model, we derive decentralized retailers' prices for the products, and distortions in pricing when compared to centrally optimal prices. We show that price distortions decrease as consumers' travel cost between retailers increases, due to less intense competition. However, price distortions do not change monotonically in consumers' switching cost between products within stores. To fix decentralized retailers' price distortions, we construct a two‐part pricing contract that coordinates the supply chain. We show that the coordinating contract is Pareto‐improving and analyze increase in the supply chain profit under coordination.     

Supply Chain Sourcing in Remanufacturing Operations: An Empirical Investigation of Remake Versus Buy

Despite recent attention to closed‐loop supply chains and remanufacturing, there is scant information about what drives the re‐make versus buy decision for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) engaging in remanufacturing. Based on the extant remanufacturing literature and transaction cost economics, we formulated hypotheses related to the drivers of in‐house versus contracted remanufacturing operations. The hypotheses were investigated via quantitative and qualitative data, thus offering a rich test of the formulated relationships. Consistent with the theory, the quantitative results showed that intellectual property, operational assets, and remanufacturing frequency are significant drivers of the re‐make versus buy decision. However, counter to the theory, the quantitative results did not support the significance of brand reputation, technological uncertainty, condition uncertainty, product complexity, and volume uncertainty. The qualitative results were used to enrich these findings by providing theoretical extensions and pragmatic insights of the remake versus buy decision in remanufacturing.     

考虑网络退货和渠道成本时全渠道BOPS定价与服务决策

随着线上线下融合的全渠道零售的兴起，越来越多的品牌商开始为顾客提供线上购买线下取货BOPS （Buy Online and Pickup in Store）的购物选择。本文考虑网络退货和渠道成本，基于网络渠道、实体渠道和BOPS渠道下的消费者效用函数构建品牌商开设BOPS渠道前后的利润模型，分析BOPS模式对品牌商需求分布和盈利能力的影响，研究定价和服务的最优决策。结果表明：（1）当网络退货率和BOPS渠道不便利程度之间满足特定关系时，开设BOPS渠道可使品牌商总需求增加、网络渠道和实体渠道的需求减少；（2）当网络退货率达到一定阈值或BOPS渠道很便利时，开设BOPS渠道可使品牌商总利润增加；（3）当网络退货率很低而网络渠道购物成本较高时，开设BOPS渠道可使品牌商获利更大；（4）在交通便利之处增设具有体验服务的顾客自提门店，不论网络渠道购物成本和网络退货率高低，甚至适当提升商品定价也可使品牌商有利可图。本研究可为品牌商实施BOPS全渠道战略提供一定的管理见解。     

P2P Marketplaces and Retailing in the Presence of Consumers' Valuation Uncertainty

Can peer‐to‐peer (P2P) marketplaces benefit traditional supply chains when consumers may experience valuation risk? P2P marketplaces can mitigate consumers' risk by allowing them to trade mismatched goods; yet, they also impose a threat to retailers and their suppliers as they compete over consumers. Further, do profit‐maximizing marketplaces always extract the entire consumer surplus from the online trades? Our two‐period model highlights the effects introduced by P2P marketplaces while accounting for the platform's pricing decisions. We prove that with low product unit cost, the P2P marketplace sets its transaction fee to the market clearing price, thereby extracting all of the seller surplus. In this range of product unit cost, the supply chain partners are worse off due to the emergence of a P2P marketplace. However, when the unit cost is high, the platform sets its transaction fee to be less than the market clearing price, intentionally leaving money on the table, as a mechanism to stimulate first period demand for new goods in expectation for some of them to be traded later, in the second period, via the marketplace. It is not until the surplus left with the sellers is sufficiently high that the supply chain partners manage to extract some of this surplus, ultimately making them better off due to a P2P marketplace. We further analyze the impact of a P2P marketplace on consumer surplus and social welfare. In addition, we consider model variants accounting for a frictionless platform and consumer strategic waiting.     

Optimal Per‐Use Rentals and Sales of Durable Products and Their Distinct Roles in Price Discrimination

We consider a setting in which consumers experience distinct instances of need for a durable product at random intervals. Each instance of need is associated with a random utility and the consumers are differentiated according to the frequency with which they experience such instances of need. We use our model of consumer utility to characterize the firm's optimal strategy of whether to sell, rent, or do a combination of both in terms of the transaction costs and consumers' usage characteristics. We find that the two modes of operation serve different roles in allowing the firm to price discriminate. While sales allow the firm to discriminate among consumers of different usage frequencies, rentals allow it to discriminate according to consumers' realized valuations. Consequently, even when transaction costs are negligible, it is often optimal for the firm to simultaneously rent and sell its product. In addition, we find that although sales and rentals are substitutes and that the offering of sales weakly increases rental prices, it is possible that the introduction of rentals to a pure selling operation can either increase or decrease the optimal sales prices.     

To sell or not to sell to an off-price retailer in the presence of strategic consumers

In the newsvendor model, strategic consumers choose between buying the product at the regular price or waiting to try to buy the product at the discount price. Retailers can benefit from the ability to decrease strategic consumers’ perceived probability of finding a unit available at the discount price. Selling some inventory to an off-price retailer, who has a large number of thrift consumers, enables retailers to change consumers’ perceived probability of product availability at a reduced price, but at a cost of losing some strategic consumers to the off-price retailer. We show that without the off-price retailer’s exclusive consumers and even if the off-price retailer buys the product for a price below the retailer’s cost, the retailer can still be better-off with the off-price retailer. We also find that the retailer benefits more when the off-price retailer charges higher price for the product and has a large consumer segment of its own.     

Public Perception of Uncertainties Within Climate Change Science

Climate change is a complex, multifaceted problem involving various interacting systems and actors. Therefore, the intensities, locations, and timeframes of the consequences of climate change are hard to predict and cause uncertainties. Relatively little is known about how the public perceives this scientific uncertainty and how this relates to their concern about climate change. In this article, an online survey among 306 Swiss people is reported that investigated whether people differentiate between different types of uncertainty in climate change research. Also examined was the way in which the perception of uncertainty is related to people's concern about climate change, their trust in science, their knowledge about climate change, and their political attitude. The results of a principal component analysis showed that respondents differentiated between perceived ambiguity in climate research, measurement uncertainty, and uncertainty about the future impact of climate change. Using structural equation modeling, it was found that only perceived ambiguity was directly related to concern about climate change, whereas measurement uncertainty and future uncertainty were not. Trust in climate science was strongly associated with each type of uncertainty perception and was indirectly associated with concern about climate change. Also, more knowledge about climate change was related to less strong perceptions of each type of climate science uncertainty. Hence, it is suggested that to increase public concern about climate change, it may be especially important to consider the perceived ambiguity about climate research. Efforts that foster trust in climate science also appear highly worthwhile.     

卖家反馈能否引发高质量的在线评论信息？——基于淘宝网的实证分析

高质量的评论为店铺带来良好的网络口碑。网络卖家如何通过回复评论来提高消费者发布评论的积极性,并提高评论内容的质量水平？本文利用评论长度和评论图片数量来衡量在线评论质量,构建卖家在线回复、店铺特征以及在线评论质量对消费者购买决策影响的理论模型。通过收集淘宝网交易数据,对假设进行了验证。发现卖家回复正向影响评论长度与图片评论数,店铺星级水平和店铺服务能力在其中具有调节作用。高质量的在线评论会促进消费者的购买决策。本文结论将为电子商务平台和卖家提升经营绩效提供建议。     

基于消费者评论的网络预售定价策略研究

在线消费者评论成为影响消费者购买行为的重要因素。本文构建两阶段销售模型（预售期、正常销售期），通过刻画预售期消费者评论对正常销售期需求的影响，探究消费者评论如何影响商家定价策略以及商家如何利用消费者评论调节竞争。结果表明，无论在垄断或竞争市场情形下，若忠实消费者选择等待至正常销售期购买产品，商家均会采取折价预售策略，即通过降低预售期价格提升消费者评论，刺激正常销售期的产品需求。在竞争市场情形下，若普通消费者的产品偏好成本非常低且预售期购买量较小，商家的折价预售策略能通过提升消费者评论以阻止竞争者进入市场；随着普通消费者产品偏好成本增大，商家会将重心转向忠实消费者，进而缓解商家之间的竞争。     

考虑退货的定价和订货优化及信息发布美化策略

考虑顾客由感知差异引起的退货行为，以及促销期与日常销售期不同的行为特点，对日常销售期和促销期顾客购买率和退货率分别进行了解析表述.在此基础上分析了确定需求下信息发布美化策略对最大利润的影响.建立了随机需求下在线零售商的期望利润模型，对定价和订货量进行联合优化.最后通过算例分析了在感知价值和感知差异服从更为一般的分布形式且存在相关性条件下，最优策略下的预期利润随信息发布美化程度的变化规律，以及相关性对信息发布美化策略有效性的影响.研究结果表明，基于感知价值和感知差异构建的购买率和退货率模型可较好解释已有实证研究结果，以此为基础对定价和库存进行联合优化更符合实际，优化条件下的最大利润随信息发布美化程度的提高先增后降，取得最大利润的信息美化值促销期大于日常销售期，且线性相关程度越高的产品取得最大利润的信息美化值越大。     

Avian Influenza Risk Perception and Live Poultry Purchase in Guangzhou, China, 2006

Human H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) infection is associated with intimate exposure to live poultry. Perceptions of risk can modify behaviors, influencing actual exposure. However, greater hazard is not necessarily followed by perception of greater risk and more precautionary behavior because self-serving cognitive biases modulate precautionary and hazardous behaviors. We examined risk perception associated with avian influenza. A total of 1,550 face-to-face within-household interviews and 1,760 telephone interviews were derived to study avian influenza risk perception and live poultry use in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, respectively. Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests assessed bivariate associations and risk distributions, respectively, and fully adjusted multivariate logistic models determined independent risk associations. Relative to Hong Kong, perceived "generalized" risk from buying live poultry (GZ, 58%, 95% confidence interval 55–60% vs. HK, 41%, 39–43%; χ²= 86.95, df  = 1, p < 0.001) and perceived self/family risk from buying ( z  =−2.092, p  = 0.036) were higher in Guangzhou. Higher perceived "generalized" risk was associated with not buying live poultry (OR = 0.65, 0.49–0.85), consistent with the pattern seen in Hong Kong, while perceived higher self/family risk was associated with buying ("likely/very likely/certain" OR = 1.74, 1.18–2.59); no such association was seen in Hong Kong. Multivariate adjustment indicated older age was associated with buying live poultry in Guangzhou (OR = 2.91, 1.36–6.25). Guangzhou respondents perceived greater risk relative to Hong Kong. Buying live poultry was associated with perceptions of less "generalized" risk but more self/family risk. Higher generalized risk was associated with fewer live poultry purchases, suggesting generalized risk may be a useful indicator of precautionary HPAI risk behavior.     

Strategic Product/Service Innovations of an Online Firm

We study the incentives that drive an online firm to make various types of innovations in a competitive environment. We develop and use a simplified price competition model between two retailers, one online and one offline. A given fraction of consumers, called the Internet penetration, comparison shop online, independent of their customer type, thereby creating two markets for the offline retailer, a captive market and a competitive market. The online product has the steeper of the two linear utility functions, which means that the customers who buy online in our model are high end. We focus on the competitive region in which both retailers are (strictly) profitable in the competitive market and consider innovations that increase high‐end appeal, low‐end appeal, and/or reduce unit cost. We find that the online firm has a strong incentive to invest in innovations that either reduce unit cost and/or, equivalently, increase the appeal to all consumers equally. Investments of this type are strategic complements: implementing one increases the value of another, so the value of two innovations of this type is more than the sum of the values of each individually. We identify a relative strength measure of the online firm such that, as its high‐end appeal increases and/or its unit cost decreases, we say that the online firm is stronger. This strength measure facilitates drawing an explicit dividing line between strong and weak online firms. If Internet penetration increases, the online firm's profits increase if and only if it is strong. If penetration increases over time, it is possible for a strong firm to turn weak and see its profits decrease and possibly disappear completely. A strong online firm has more opportunity to profit from low‐end innovations than does a weak one, while the opposite is true for high‐end innovations. Interestingly, some innovations may actually decrease the online firm's profits. We discuss the implications of our results for existing and future online innovations.     

基于评价者过滤的个性化信任模型

信任问题是困扰C2C电子商务发展的重要瓶颈。在传统模型基础上,本文进一步引入5梯度的连续性评分标度、交易次数、多维评分、惩罚因子四项因素,研究两种商品交易历史对卖家信任的影响。为满足个性化选择,创建了评价者过滤机制,在此基础上构建可满足用户需要、防范信用欺诈的个性化信任模型,通过仿真实验验证模型的有效性。     

可退货在线租赁竞争分析及其风险回报模型

经典的在线租赁只考虑购买和租赁两种决策行为,当在线租赁方购买设备后,不允许退货。本文假设在线租赁方在选择购买设备后,如果觉得购买设备不划算,可以在任何时候花费一定的代价把设备退还给承租方。通过定义退货费用函数来刻画退货行为,本文提出了可退货在线租赁问题,它是经典在线租赁问题的扩展。利用传统的竞争分析方法设计了该问题的竞争策略,分析了策略的竞争性能,并证明该策略能达到竞争比下界(即是最优竞争策略)。同时,在风险回报竞争分析框架下,进一步讨论了上述问题,得到了给定预期和风险下收益最优的竞争策略。