Browsing by Subject "Retailing"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The effect of the fast-ship option in retail supply chains
    (2011-01) Chen, Hao-Wei
    To reduce loss of sales caused by demand uncertainty, retailers can offer a fast-ship option to customers who experience stockout. The fast-ship option is a common practice that serves as a secondary source of supply. When this option is offered, the supply chain partners arrange to have out-of-stock items shipped directly from the supplier to willing customers at no additional cost to the customers. The fast-ship option serves as a mechanism by which inventory risk can be shared between the retailer and the supplier. We investigate the retailer's and the supplier's interactions when the fast-ship option is offered under different scenarios. More specifically, we characterize the supplier's and the retailer's ordering policies and investigate how the supplier and the retailer react to different levels of participation for fast-ship orders. We also study how the supplier can manage its risk by using either price markup or supply commitment under different supply contract structures. In addition, when the fast-ship option is offered, we investigate how alliance or competition between retailers can affect the profitability of the supplier and retailers.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Two Essays on Product Subscriptions
    (2021-05) Liang, Yilong
    Product subscription, i.e. the business model that customers pay to get periodical delivery of certain products, is trendy in recent years. However, given the rising popularity, researches are still lagging behind. In my dissertation, I explore the effects of subscription products on both other not-for-subscription products and the products that are available for subscriptions in a multi-product context. By collecting data from a grocery retailer which rolls out subscription plans for several of its products, I investigate how subscriptions affect customers’ purchases of different products. I find that subscriptions increase customers’ purchases of the other products, which is partly due to the reminding effects of subscriptions during product subscriptions’ delivery. The availabilities of subscription options also facilitate customers’ purchases and increase the overall sales of the products that are available for subscription. Although the overall effects are positive, they are heterogeneous and retailers should be cautious about some of the possible negative consequences.