Goods sold by electronic firms are not perfect substitutes for otherwise identical goods sold by their offline counterparts. Online purchases are associated with waiting costs, and they do not allow consumers to inspect the product prior to purchase. Visiting a conventional retailer, on the...

This paper studies the impact of competition on the benefits of advance selling. I construct a two-period price-setting game with heterogeneous consumers and two firms that produce different brands. Some consumers prefer one brand, others prefer the other brand. Consumers derive common value...

The existing theoretical literature on mass customization maintains that customization reduces product differentiation and intensifies price competition. In contrast, operations management studies argue that customization serves primarily to differentiate a company from its competitors....