Sales and Merchandising Commons^™

Promotion Architecture: A Deal Fairness Model Of Restricted Price Promotions, Shangwen Yi, David Hardisty, Dale Griffin, Thomas Allard

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This research examines the effectiveness of two common types of restricted price promotions: threshold promotions (conditional on spending more than a threshold amount; e.g., “Get $5 off on orders of $10 or more”) and capped promotions (limited to a maximum dollar value; e.g., “Get 50% off, up to $5 per order”). Results from seven pre-registered studies, including one field study, show that threshold promotions lead to higher purchase intentions and conversion rates (but potentially lower purchase amounts) than comparable capped promotions—even though capped promotions are equivalent in maximal economic savings for the consumer—when the trigger value (the spending amount at …

The Asymmetric Effects Of Posting An Online Review On Future Spending And The Dark Side Of Solicitations, Hulya Karaman

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Motivated by the prevalence of online review creation and solicitation, this paper examines whether posting an online review impacts the reviewer’s future spending on the reviewed brand. Identifying the causal effects of posting an online review is challenging because reviewers self-select into posting, making it an endogenous decision. I overcome this challenge by using randomized online review solicitations as an instrument for the endogenous treatment variable of posting an online review and establish that doing so decreases the average future spending by the reviewers on the reviewed brand. Additionally, I show that soliciting customers to post increases their propensity to …

Shrinkflation And Consumer Demand, Aljoscha Janssen, Johannes Kasinger

Research Collection School Of Economics

This study investigates shrinkflation—the practice of reducing product size while maintaining or slightly changing prices—in the U.S. retail grocery market. We analyze a decade of retail scanner data to assess the prevalence and patterns of product size changes across various product categories. Our findings show that approximately 1.92% of products have been downsized. When comparing total sales, product downsizing is more than five times as prevalent as upsizing. Product downsizing typically occurs without a corresponding decrease in price and is widespread across product categories. Consequently, consumers end up paying more per unit volume. We further find that consumers are more …

Over-Reliance On Aesthetics? The Appearance-Reveals-Character Lay Theory Increases Consumers’ Devaluation Of Unattractive Produce, Shilpa Madan, Krishna Savani, Gita Venkataramani Johar

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Approximately 40% of all produce is rejected because it appears unattractive, contributing significantly to food waste. Whereas previous research attributes this devaluation to the ugly-is-bad effect, this research identifies an important moderator of consumers’ reliance on this heuristic: the lay theory that a person’s outer appearance reveals their inner character. Specifically, consumers who believe that people’s appearances reveal their character are less willing to accept unattractive (vs. attractive) produce because they generalize their lay theory to produce and are, thus, more likely to infer that unattractive produce is of lower quality. Consumers who do not hold the lay theory do …

A Data-Driven Framework For Optimal Retail Store Location, Ming Hui Tan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This study develops a data-driven framework for optimal retail store location planning that integrates road network analysis, mobility data and optimization techniques. By addressing the limitations of traditional approaches that rely on outdated census data and manual site selection, this research offers a scalable and adaptable solution for retail expansion in diverse urban environments. Chapters 1 and 2 establish the foundational context and theoretical underpinnings of this research. Chapter 1 introduces the research problem and motivation, highlighting the limitations of existing approaches and defining three key research objectives: automating candidate site identification, improving footfall estimation, and developing a scalable multi-site …

Temporal Patterns Of New Product Introductions And Ipo Value: The Importance Of Recency, Dispersion, And Asymmetry, Suyun Mah, Rebecca J. Slotegraaf, Girish Mallapragada

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A firm’s innovation activity is often judged by the number and type of new products it launches, but when these products are introduced may be equally important, especially before going public. This research investigates how the temporal pattern of new product introductions (NPIs) influences a firm’s initial public offering (IPO) value. The analysis uses data from 298 firms that went public between 2006 and 2023, and focuses on three patterns of timing: recency (how recently the latest product was launched before the IPO), dispersion (the degree to which NPIs before the IPO are spread out over time), and asymmetry (how …

Research On The Relationship Between Manufacturing Process Digitalization And Product Quality Performance: A Case Study Of Discrete Manufacturing, Baozhong Zhang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The study aims to explore the impact of digital transformation on product quality in discrete manufacturing enterprises. As the global economy and technology rapidly advance, the manufacturing industry faces unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Digital transformation has emerged as a key strategy for tackling these challenges and has become a significant trend in the manufacturing industry. The discrete manufacturing industry, which demands high product quality, faces even greater challenges in digital transformation. However, if discrete manufacturing enterprises successfully navigate this transformation, they can significantly improve quality, gain a competitive edge, and unlock even greater opportunities for their business.

The study combines …

Predicting Consumers’ Purchase Intention Of Browsed Products: A Study Based On Eye‑Tracking, Feiyan Jia, Choon Ling Sia, Yani Shi, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Predicting consumers’ purchase intention of browsed products enables sellers to implement nuanced promotion strategies to stimulate purchase. But how can we predict consumers’ purchase intention of browsed products? Our research demonstrates that consumers’ eye movement data collected when they browse products can serve this aim. We train and test the prediction model using logistic regression and random forest algorithms. Using data collected in a laboratory experiment, our empirical results show that both algorithms perform much better than a random guess, and the logistic regression performs slightly better than the random forest. Our findings imply that eye movement data enable sellers …

Competency Of Sales Employees In Knowledge-Intensive Industries An Empirical Study Based On The Pharmaceutical Industry, Yue Zhang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

With the rapid development of modern technology, the pharmaceutical industry is undergoing a period of unprecedented change. On the one hand, global population growth, aging, and the continued increase in people's healthconcerns have led to an ever-expanding demand for the pharmaceutical market. On the other hand, a large amount of capital is pouring into the pharmaceutical field, prompting the emergence of new pharmaceutical enterprises, and the competition in the market is becoming increasingly heated. Against this backdrop, the replacement of pharmaceutical products has acceleratedsignificantly, with new therapeutic methods, pharmaceutical dosage forms andinnovative drugs being introduced to the market. At the …

Uncovering Merchants’ Willingness To Wait In On-Demand Food Delivery Markets, Jian Liang, Ya Zhao, Hai Wang, Zuopeng Xiao, Jintao Ke

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While traditional on-demand food delivery services help restaurants reach more customers and enable doorstep deliveries, they also come with drawbacks, such as high commission fees and limited control over the delivery process. White-label food delivery services have emerged as an alternative, ready-to-use platform for restaurants to arrange delivery for customer orders received through their applications or websites, without the constraints imposed by traditional on-demand food delivery platforms or the need to develop an in-house delivery operation. Although several studies have investigated consumer behavior when using traditional on-demand food delivery services, there is limited research on merchants’ behavior when adopting white-label …

Autonomous Stores: How Levels Of In-Store Automation Affect Store Patronage, Sabine Benoit, Birgit Altrichter, Dhruv Grewal, Carl-Philip Ahlbom

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Autonomous stores operate without needing on -site staff present to support and monitor customers. This study seeks to determine which autonomous stores are most likely to succeed. By adapting convenience theory and drawing on secondary and qualitative data, the authors identify unique features of autonomous stores that constitute convenience dimensions: options for check -in (access convenience), staff support (assistance convenience), check -out (transaction convenience), and to allow customers to check their itemized baskets (verification convenience). Perceptions of convenience, autonomy, and safety explain the influences of unique store features. A conjoint experiment provides a test of the direct effects of each …

The Science Of Creating Brand Associations: A Continuous Trinity Model Linking Brand Associations To Learning Processes, Christilene Du Plessis, Serena D'Hooge, Steven Sweldens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The Continuous Trinity Model (CTM) of brand associations integrates 50 years of consumer learning research with recent conceptualizations of consciousness. Three types of brand associations are proposed at the representational level (expectations, meaning, and affect), corresponding to three types of learning at the process level (predictive learning, referential learning, and direct affect transfer). A core proposition derived from research on automaticity holds that the operating conditions of the learning processes vary on a continuum from mostly System 2 for predictive learning to mostly System 1 for direct affect transfer, with referential learning as a mix of the two. The CTM …

Factors Affecting Online Consumers' Cultural Presence And Cultural Immersion Experiences In Live Streaming Shopping, Lifu Li, Kyeong Kang, Yafei Feng, Anqi Zhao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper conducts research on the interaction between ethnic minority group (EMG) live streamers and online consumers, aiming to present how EMG live streamers’ appearance and interaction factors affect online consumers’ cultural experience during live streaming shopping. Based on the social presence theory and the immersion theory, this paper explores how EMG live streamers impact online consumers’ cultural experience, and it designs personal EMG knowledge as a moderating variable under specific social and cultural backgrounds. Through analysing 325 online questionnaires based on the partial least squares path modelling and variance-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the study results support that both …

The Dark Side Of Category Expansion: Will Existing Ones Pay The Price?, Qi Yu, Ron Berman, Eric Bradlow

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Many retailers that manage product assortments believe that “more is better”. We challenge this conventional wisdom by demonstrating that a retailer may face more price-sensitive demand for existing categories after a category expansion. While introducing a new category to a store may increase the demand for the existing ones, this increase sometimes suggests a movement towards the steeper part of the demand curve and an increase in price sensitivity. We build a model of multi-category purchases with transportation costs and generate a series of theoretical predictions of the changes in price sensitivity after category expansion. We then estimate the model …

Immersive Retailing: The In-Store Experience, Henrik Hagtvedt, Chandukala, Sandeep R.

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This conceptual article explores why consumers visit physical stores—despite living in a digital-first world—and presents potential ways for retailers to further encourage offline shopping. Although online retailing tends to offer the greatest convenience, brick-and-mortar outlets can offer an immersive in-store experience that combines convenience and interest. The present exposition considers store features within a 2 × 2 typology of convenience and interest and illustrates how these features contribute, or fail to contribute, to immersive in-store experiences. Other factors, such as ambient stimuli that elicit sensory- and aesthetic pleasure, provide additional paths to immersion. The notions raised may serve as a …

Leveraging In-Store Technology And Ai: Increasing Customer And Employee Efficiency And Enhancing Their Experiences, Dhruv Grewal, Sabine Benoit, Stephanie Noble, Abhijit Guha, Carl-Philip Ahlbom, Jens Nordfalt

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Due to digital innovations, retailing is undergoing radical changes. Scholars have proposed frameworks to address outcomes of implementing technology e.g., an increased customer experience, efficiency gains, consumer or employee acceptance. Existing frameworks concentrate primarily on the consumer perspective, focus on specific technologies (e.g., AI) and covering the customer journey. In contrast, this paper also focuses on the employee perspective, and how technology influences the employee journey. Since the convenience offered by online retailers puts offline retailers under pressure, this research focuses on in-store technology. Based on a comprehensive review of managerial and academic literature and expert interviews, we propose a …

Cross-Period Impatience: Subjective Financial Periods Explain Time-Inconsistent Choices, Minkwang Jang, Oleg Urminsky

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Inconsistency in consumer time preferences has been well established and used to explain seemingly short-sighted behaviors (e.g., failures of self-control). However, prior research has conflated time-inconsistent preferences (discount rates that vary over time) with present bias (greater discounting when outcomes are delayed specifically from the present, as opposed to from a future time). This research shows that time-inconsistent preferences are reliably observed only when choices are substantially delayed (e.g., months into the future), which cannot be explained by present bias. This seeming puzzle is explained by a novel cross-period discounting framework, which predicts that consumers are more impatient when choosing …

Consumers’ Reaction To Corporate Esg Performance: Evidence From Store Visits, Frank Weikai Li, Frank Weikai Li, Roni Michaely

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using micro-level data on consumer shopping behavior, this paper investigates end-consumers’ attitudes toward firms’ ESG behavior, and as importantly, the ability of consumers to affect firms’ policy concerning sustainability issues. We find that consumers care about firms’ approach toward ESG, and consumers’ behavior can impact firms’ attitudes. Using ESG incidents as a proxy, we find that the reduction in store visits is more pronounced for ESG-conscious consumers, such as those living in democratic counties, and counties with a higher fraction of educated and younger residents. Online shopping interest data yields similar results. Using abnormally hot temperature as a shock to …

Catching The Fast Payments Trend: Optimal Designs And Leadership Strategies Of Retail Payment And Settlement Systems, Zhiling Guo, Dan Ma

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recent financial technologies have enabled fast payments and are reshaping retail payment and settlement systems globally. We developed an analytical model to study the optimal design of a new retail payment system in terms of settlement speed and system capability under both bank and fintech firm heterogeneous participation incentives. We found that three types of payment systems emerge as equilibrium outcomes: batch retail (BR), expedited retail (ER), and real-time retail (RR) payment systems. Although the base value of the payment service positively affects both settlement speed and system capability, the expected liquidity cost negatively impacts settlement speed, and total transaction …

Impacts Of Information Channels On Consumer Decision Journey: Evidence From An Experience Durable Goods Industry, Chih-Wei Tsai

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

With the emergence of various information technologies, how to reasonably layout in different touch points has become a crucial issue for the company in practice, especially for those experienced durable goods with greater uncertainty and decision complexity. The company seeks to leverage the limited budget to achieve the most efficient marketing strategies, and thus the most effective combination of information channels. On the other hand, consumers could be easily influenced by different information resources in the process of purchase decision-making, and their information search behavior will gradually change with their accumulation of knowledge, experience and distinctive search objectives. Therefore, this …

Consumers’ Preferences For Ethical Entertainment Consumption: Conceptualization, Development, And Validation Of A Scale, Avirupa Basu, Tamas Makany, Pratap Chandra Mandal, Ashutosh Bishnu Murti

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Our study describes the conceptualization, development, and validation of a reliable scale to measure the Consumers’ Preferences for Ethical Entertainment Consumption (CPEEC) in the context of OTT platforms. Past literature has addressed Ethical Consumption in various contexts that hold significant importance among consumers. However, there is limited literature on the Ethical Consumption in the domain of OTT entertainment, which is a new and burgeoning field of literature. Conceptualizing and developing a measurement scale for CPEEC will help measure the ethicality of entertainment like films, web shows and reality shows. The CPEEC scale is developed and validated by performing 33 in-depth …

Forecasting Airport Transfer Passenger Flow Using Realtime Data And Machine Learning, Xiaojia Guo, Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Bert De Reyck

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: In collaboration with Heathrow airport, we develop a predictive system that generates quantile forecasts of transfer passengers’ connection times. Sampling from the distribution of individual passengers’ connection times, the system also produces quantile forecasts for the number of passengers arriving at the immigration and security areas. Academic/Practical relevance: Airports and airlines have been challenged to improve decision-making by producing accurate forecasts in real time. Our work is the first to apply machine learning for predicting real-time quantile forecasts in the airport. We focus on passengers’ connecting journeys, which have only been studied by few researchers. Better forecasts of …

Research On The Factors Influencing New Tobacco Consumption Behavior, Yuqing Wen

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

In the global environment of tobacco control, along with the increasing concern for health, electronic companies around the world have focused on the research and production of "non-combustible alternatives to cigarettes" to meet the psychology of consumers to quit smoking and the pursuit of fashion, and the most popular products are "Electronic Cigarette” (E-cig) and its similar products. In recent years, domestic E-cig-related products have gradually known by the public, with increasing exposure in the news media and rapid growth in sales. Among them, HnB E-cig has smoking taste closer to the characteristics of traditional cigarettes and therefore is gradually …

Anchorage: Visual Analysis Of Satisfaction In Customer Service Videos Via Anchor Events, Kam Kwai Wong, Xingbo Wang, Yong Wang, Jianben He, Rong Zhang, Huamin Qu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Delivering customer services through video communications has brought new opportunities to analyze customer satisfaction for quality management. However, due to the lack of reliable self-reported responses, service providers are troubled by the inadequate estimation of customer services and the tedious investigation into multimodal video recordings. We introduce , a visual analytics system to evaluate customer satisfaction by summarizing multimodal behavioral features in customer service videos and revealing abnormal operations in the service process. We leverage the semantically meaningful operations to introduce structured event understanding into videos which help service providers quickly navigate to events of their interest. supports a comprehensive …

The Impact Of Subscription Programs On Customer Purchases, Raghu Iyengar, Young-Hoon Park, Qi Yu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Subscription programs have become increasingly popular among a wide variety of retailers and marketplace platforms. Subscription programs give members access to a set of exclusive benefits for a fixed fee upfront. In this paper, we examine the causal effect of a subscription program on customer behavior. To account for self-selection and identify the individual-level treatment effects, we combine a difference-in-differences approach with a generalized random forests procedure that matches each member of the subscription program with comparable non-members. We find subscription leads to a large increase in customer purchases. The effect of subscription is economically significant, persistent over time, and …

Exploring A Suitable Youth Football Training Model For China: From The Perspective Of Customer Engagement, Nanyan Zheng

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

As a major sport country, China’s football is facing tricky problems of insufficient reserve players and football culture alienation. Improving the quality of youth football training not only can supplement a large number of reserve players, but also shape a sound football culture, which is a good approach to the current problems of China’s football. Based on the theory of customer engagement, this dissertation starts from the reality of Chinese youth football training, analyzes the problems existing in current youth football training in depth, and proposes that convenience, interest and empathy can improve the customer engagement of youth trainees. Outland …

The Differential Effects Of Csr And Csi On Consumer Willingness To Pay: Implications For Service Providers And Retailers, Sabine Benoit, Julia Hartmann, Christina Sichtmann, Martin Wetzels

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Service providers and retailers reselling branded have the discretion to set and adapt prices according to customers’ willingness to pay (WTP). Research often notes markup effects, such that WTP increases in response to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and markdown effects, lowering their WTP for corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). Theory suggests attitude changes to (negative) CSI are stronger than to (positive) CSR, but the extent and whether this difference holds for WTP and across various product types are unknown. Using experimental data, an incentive-compatible measure, and an actual purchase, this article reports on three studies that show that consumers mark up …

Multi-Functional Job Roles To Support Operations In A Multi-Faceted Jewel Enabled By Ai And Digital Transformation, Steven M. Miller

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this story, we highlight the way in which the use of AI enabled support systems, together with work process digital transformation and innovative approaches to job redesign, have combined to dramatically change the nature of the work of the front-line service staff who protect and support the facility and visitors at the world’s most iconic airport mall and lifestyle destination.

Out Of The Trap: Conversion Funnel Business Model, Customer Switching Costs, And Industry Profitability, Niloofar Abolfathi, Andrea Fosfuri, Simone Santamaria

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research Summary: Across many industries, firms employ a conversion funnel business model to attract customers with basic and affordable products, generate lock-in, and then sell them more advanced and expensive products. We argue that this business model, coupled with high customer switching costs, results in a market outcome characterized by aggressive pricing and reduced profits. A sudden reduction in customer switching costs disrupts the conversion funnel and can eventually increase industrywide prices and profitability, an outcome that contradicts conventional wisdom in strategy research. We develop a stylized model to formalize our ideas and provide supportive evidence using a difference-in-differences methodology …

Does Social Media Accelerate Product Recalls? Evidence From The Pharmaceutical Industry, Yang Gao, Wenjing Duan, Huaxia Rui

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Social media has become a vital platform for voicing product-related experiences that may not only reveal product defects but also impose pressure on firms to act more promptly than before. This study scrutinizes the rarely-studied relationship between these voices and the speed of product recalls in the context of the pharmaceutical industry where social media pharmacovigilance is becoming increasingly important for the detection of drug safety signals. Using Federal Drug Administration (FDA) drug enforcement reports and social media data crawled from online forums and Twitter, we investigate whether social media can accelerate the product recall process in the context of …