We ask the question, “when should the most highly skilled salespeople sell the best products?” Our main result is that the highly skilled reps should sell better products when the task is very complex and worse products when the task is very simple. This is shown using a general analytical...

In channel structures characterized by a powerful retailer (e.g., Wal-Mart, Home Depot), the dominant retailer's acceptance of a manufacturer's new product often determines the success of the new offering. Focusing on a manufacturer in such a market, we develop an approach to positioning and...

Paid placements on search engines reached sales of nearly $11 billion in the United States last year and represent the most rapidly growing form of online advertising today. In its classic form, a search engine sets up an auction for each search word in which competing websites bid for their...

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The growing dominance of large retailers has altered traditional channel incentives for manufacturers. In this paper, we present a theoretical model to illustrate a strategic manufacturer response to a dominant retailer. In our model, a dominant and a weak retailer compete for the sale of a...

When demand is uncertain, manufacturers and retailers often have private information on future demand, and such information asymmetry impacts strategic interaction in distribution channels. In this paper, we investigate a channel consisting of a manufacturer and a downstream retailer facing a...