The usefulness of a software product becomes obvious to consumers only after they get to experience it and, upon experiencing it, they may reach different conclusions regarding its true value. We examine the problem of designing free software trials under a general learning function. Our...

We consider advertising problems under an IT capacity constraint encountered by electronic retailers in a duopolistic setting. While there is a considerable amount of literature on advertising games between firms, introducing an IT capacity constraint fundamentally changes this problem. In the...

There are instances when a consumer's overall utility depends on her own utility as well as on the utility of another individual (e.g., in case of shared consumption with another individual, or in case of buying a gift for someone). In such instances, in order to make a choice that maximizes her...

Sponsored search advertising has become an important venue for firms to compete for consumers. As a result, many keywords attract a large number of bidders, where the competing advertisers could be quite heterogeneous. We examine whether this heterogeneity impacts how consumers perceive and...