Recent research suggests that the sales rate of a product would increase immediately after a seller posts a "scarcity message" to alert potential consumers that there are only a few units left in inventory. Knowing this effect, should an online seller post scarcity messages? In this technical...

Unlike in a traditional store environment where inventory is directly visible to customers, Internet retailers can selectively choose how to divulge inventory level information to customers. For example, when viewing a particular item page, online shoppers may either see merely “in stock” or...

The adoption of inventory management practices and their relationship with the enterprise-wide adoption of information systems are empirically evaluated. Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses of survey responses indicate a strong enterprise-wide emphasis on materials requirements...

Warehouse club (WC) retailers have typically expanded to new markets using stand-alone stores, rather than pursuing dense store networks as other (non-WC) retailers have in the past. While this strategy generates operating efficiencies, it also imposes high travel costs on households to shop,...

This paper undertakes two related tasks to augment current understanding regarding vendor-owned inventory management (VOIM) arrangements implemented in the retail industry. The first task formally juxtaposes three prevalent forms of VOIM arrangements (i.e., Consignment, Pay-On-Scan, and...

Several prominent Internet retailers provide real-time inventory-level information to online shoppers. Whereas this practice hints at retailers' belief that disclosed inventory information may induce demand, prior research in operations management and marketing have yielded conflicting views on...

Efficiently managing inventories requires an accurate estimation of stockout costs. This estimation is complicated by challenges in determining how to compensate consumers monetarily to ensure they will maintain the same level of utility they would have obtained had stockouts not occurred. This...