The provision of essential supplies is a key service provided by retailers when demand spikes due to consumer stockpiling during environmental emergencies. Moreover, it is important for retailers to quickly recover from these events by replenishing the stock of essential supplies to meet the...

This study examines the impacts of consumer confidence on stockpiling behavior and, subsequently, retail inventory management. We show how stockpiling behavior evolved during the “Great Recession” of 2008-2009 as consumer confidence waned and demonstrate the impact of this development on...

The operations literature has increasingly accounted for the presence of strategic consumer behavior. Theory suggests that such a behaviour exposes firms to intertemporal competition and exerts downwards pressure on prices. However, little evidence exists to demonstrate the outcome effect and...

Retailers are increasingly adopting a dual-format model. In addition to acting as traditional merchants (buying and then reselling goods), these retailers also provide a platform for third-party sellers to access and compete for the same customers. In this paper we investigate the strategic...

We investigate the impact of strategic consumer behavior on retailers' dynamic pricing decisions. We present a stylized two-period model, and test the equilibrium predictions in a set of behavioral experiments in which human subjects played the role of pricing managers. Our main insight is that...

We use panel data to examine consumer purchasing and retail management of an essential product, hand sanitizer, during eight seasonal flu epidemics and the 2009-2010 swine flu pandemic. Data are gathered on the severity and spread of flu symptoms across the United States and on sales,...