Advance Selling Strategy Research Articles

Online marketing: When to offer a refund for advanced sales

Advance selling is a marketing strategy commonly used by online retailers to increase sales by exploiting consumer valuation uncertainty. Recently, some online retailers have started to allow refunds on products sold in advance. On the one hand this reduces the net advance sales, but on the other hand it allows a higher advance sales price. This research is the first to explore the overall effect of allowing a refund on profits from advance sales, identifying conditions where advance selling with or without refunds (or no advance selling at all) is best. We analytically compare the profits of three advance selling strategies: none, without refund, and with refund. We show that selling in advance and allowing a refund is optimal for products with a relatively small profit margin and small strategic market size, and that the added profit can be considerable. Our results guide managers in selecting the right advance selling strategy. To facilitate this, we graphically display, based on the two dimensions of regular profit margin and strategic market size, under what conditions the different strategies are optimal.

Advance Selling to Strategic Consumers: Preorder Contingent Production Strategy with Advance Selling Target

Motivated by emerging industry practices, this paper studies the effectiveness of a new advance selling strategy in counteracting strategic consumer behavior: the preorder contingent production (PCP) strategy, where the seller's production decision is contingent on an advance selling target. We find that compared to other advance selling strategies, such as the traditional advance selling strategy and the capacity rationing strategy, the PCP strategy is effective in mitigating strategic waiting behavior and thus can significantly improve the seller's profit performance, especially when consumers’ discount factor is at a medium or high level, the production cost is not too high, or the market size has an unbalanced probability distribution. Moreover, when the market size is deterministic, we show that the PCP strategy can completely eliminate strategic waiting behavior and attain the seller's profit performance under myopic consumer behavior. Finally, we demonstrate that the benefits of the PCP strategy are robust under other model considerations.

Advance Selling to Strategic Consumers: Preorder Contingent Production Strategy with Advance Selling Target

Motivated by emerging industry practices, this paper studies the effectiveness of a new advance selling strategy in counteracting strategic consumer behavior: the preorder contingent production (PCP) strategy, where the seller's production decision is contingent on an advance selling target. We find that compared to other advance selling strategies, such as the traditional advance selling strategy and the capacity rationing strategy, the PCP strategy is effective in mitigating strategic waiting behavior and thus can significantly improve the seller's profit performance, especially when consumers’ discount factor is at a medium or high level, the production cost is not too high, or the market size has an unbalanced probability distribution. Moreover, when the market size is deterministic, we show that the PCP strategy can completely eliminate strategic waiting behavior and attain the seller's profit performance under myopic consumer behavior. Finally, we demonstrate that the benefits of the PCP strategy are robust under other model considerations.

Optimal ordering and financing decisions under advance selling and delayed payment for a capital-constrained supply chain

We compare two different financing strategies, advance selling, and delayed payment, for a supply chain with a capital-constrained retailer facing uncertain demand. We firstly establish the retailer’s optimal ordering and financing decisions under advance selling and delayed payment, respectively. In case of advance selling, we find that a strikingly different price discount rate should be adopted when the retailer changes to being capital-constrained. In case of delayed payment, we analytically investigate the impact of the retailer’s capital level on her own performance. Furthermore, we identify the conditions under which advance selling strategy or delayed payment strategy is preferable. In particular, advance selling strategy is preferable for the retailer when she is sufficiently capital-constrained or customers are relatively price sensitive; In contrast, delayed payment strategy is preferable for the supplier and the entire supply chain when the retailer is sufficiently capital-constrained.

A two-period pricing model for perishable items

This paper presents a two-period pricing model for perishable items via an advance selling strategy deployed within electronic businesses. This model is proposed by classifying consumers based on their shopping habits: strategic consumers and conventional consumers. The model was developed both with and without a consumer order cancellation variable. Numerical computation and sensitivity analysis were conducted to test and justify the theoretical model. The results demonstrate that the ratio of potential consumers in an advance selling period to that in regular selling period is the main factor affecting pricing decisions. Consumers' perception of price fairness and order cancellation have effect on sellers' total revenue. The best revenue and price is obtained by adjusting the length of the advance selling period.

A two-period pricing model for perishable items

This paper presents a two-period pricing model for perishable items via an advance selling strategy deployed within electronic businesses. This model is proposed by classifying consumers based on their shopping habits: strategic consumers and conventional consumers. The model was developed both with and without a consumer order cancellation variable. Numerical computation and sensitivity analysis were conducted to test and justify the theoretical model. The results demonstrate that the ratio of potential consumers in an advance selling period to that in regular selling period is the main factor affecting pricing decisions. Consumers' perception of price fairness and order cancellation have effect on sellers' total revenue. The best revenue and price is obtained by adjusting the length of the advance selling period.

Advance selling in the presence of product diffusion effect

Product diffusion refers to the phenomenon that the later demand is dependent on the early sales. To investigate how a firm’s advance selling strategy is affected by the effect of product diffusion, we consider a monopolist seller who sells a fashionable product in a market that comprises of myopic and strategic consumers over two periods (i.e., the advance selling season and the regular selling season). For a linear product diffusion effect we find that, when the effect of product diffusion is positive, the seller may set an extremely high advance selling price to induce the strategic consumers to purchase in the regular selling season, which is counter-intuitive. Moreover, the optimal procurement quantity for the seller may increase in the negative effect of product diffusion and decrease in the amount of strategic consumers. When we extend our model to consider a concave quadratic product diffusion effect, however, the optimal procurement quantity is concave in the amount of strategic consumers. Numerical studies are further presented to discuss the managerial insights.

Product Diffusion Using Advance Selling Strategies: An Online Social Network Perspective

This study analyzes the diffusion of two product types using an advance selling strategy from a social network perspective. We extended the susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) model by adding a buyer component (SIRB) to the model and conducted an in-depth analysis of transmission probability and purchase probability when using an advance selling strategy. Agent-based simulation indicates that cost reduction and promotional effort have positive effects on profits, while lead time negatively affects them. Statistical analyses indicate that lead time has a U-shaped relationship with profits for non-durable products, but an inverted U-shaped relationship with those for durable products. For both products types, promotional effort has an inverted U-shaped relationship with profits under the condition of low-quality products and an inverted U-shaped relationship in the case of high-quality products. The reasons underlying these results are discussed, followed by implications for firms adopting advance selling strategies.

Advance Sales of Services

We investigate a service provider’s advance selling strategies in the presence of a channel intermediary who improves (i) consumers’ accessibility to the service or (ii) the service provider’s access to higher valuation segments. We evaluate the conditions under which dealing with such an intermediary may offset the attendant costs of providing suitable incentives. Our results indicate that the relative profitability of selling via the intermediary is affected by an interaction among marginal costs, capacity level, and the type of value the intermediary brings to the channel. We find that a capacity-constrained service provider may prefer selling via an intermediary that offers improved access to higher valuation consumers. However, when the service provider has excess capacity, indirect sales is preferred even when the intermediary is simply expanding the reach. In such a setting, both the service provider and the intermediary can enhance their profits in a symbiotic manner. Our findings have several implications for service providers. A service provider with limited capacity and relatively small marginal cost would be better off not contracting with an intermediary. In contrast, service providers with larger capacity and marginal cost will benefit from using an indirect channel despite the costs of incentivizing such an intermediary.

Learning in Advance Selling with Heterogeneous Consumers

The advance selling strategy is implemented when a firm offers consumers the opportunity to order its product in advance of the regular selling season. Advance selling reduces uncertainty for both the firm and the buyer and enables the firm to update its forecast of future demand. The distinctive feature of the present study of advance selling is that we divide consumers into two groups, experienced and inexperienced. Experienced consumers know their valuations of the product in advance. The presence of experienced consumers yields new insights. Specifically, pre-orders from experienced consumers lead to a more precise forecast of future demand by the firm. We show that the firm will always adopt advance selling and that the optimal pre-order price may be at a discount or a premium relative to the regular selling price.

Advance selling strategies for oligopolists by considering product diffusion effect

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the advance selling strategies for oligopolists when considering the product diffusion effect. Design/methodology/approach – The authors consider a market that composes of two competitive sellers who are different in their reputation. The two firms sell the same product in the market over two periods (i.e. the advance selling season and the regular selling season). Due to the effect of product diffusion, the demand of each firm in the regular selling season is dependent on the two firms’ advance demands. Findings – For the firm with lower reputation, it is beneficial to decrease the advance selling price with the diffusion effect caused by its advance demand. For the firm with higher reputation, it is also beneficial to decrease the advance selling price with the diffusion effect caused by its advance demand if the consumers’ enthusiasm for the product in regular selling season is high enough; otherwise it should not decrease his advance selling price since this practice cannot greatly increase his demand. Practical implications – The obtained results can provide operational managers in reality with valuable suggestions in making advance selling decisions. Originality/value – The paper is among the first to investigate the impact of product diffusion effect on a firm’s advance selling strategy in a competitive setting.

Advance selling decisions with overconfident consumers

Consumers may overestimate the precisions of their valuation predictions. In this paper, we propose a decision model of this overconfidence in valuation and analyze a retailer's advance selling strategy in a two-period setting. The presence of overconfident consumers yields new insights in the retailer's selling strategy. We find that advance selling strategy is not always beneficial to the retailer. The retailer should practice advance selling when the difference of the regular consumers' expected valuation and expected surplus when not buying in advance is no less than a certain threshold. This threshold is weakly decreasing in overconfidence level given the same risk aversion degree, strictly decreasing in consumers' risk aversion degree if overconfidence level is high, and strictly increasing otherwise. When consumers become either more overconfident or risk averse with a high overconfidence level, the retailer becomes more likely to sell in both periods. We also show that, the retailer will set a higher price in the advance selling period in the market with overconfident consumers than that without overconfident consumers when selling in both periods.

Effect of Time Preferences on Optimal Prices and Profitability of Advance Selling

In advance selling, firms announce that they will charge different prices for those who buy early vs. those who buy late. Previous literature showed that advance selling allows for increased profits in a rather wide range of settings, which typically hold in many service industries. Despite ample evidence that consumers exhibit higher discount rates than firms, it is not clear how differences in time preferences affect optimal prices of advance selling. This article develops an analytical model for optimal prices in advance selling that accounts for such differences in time preferences. In contrast to previous literature, the results indicate that advance selling quickly becomes less profitable than spot selling if consumers discount at a higher rate than firms (and vice versa). They also show that previous findings about the optimality of different advance selling strategies are unaffected if consumers and firms discount at the same rate, despite different optimal prices. Another major implication of our work is that analytical models and managerial decision making should consider time preferences if payment and consumption might occur at different points in time.

The Equivalence of Bundling and Advance Sales

We identify the conditions under which a problem of optimal advance selling strategy can be mathematically transformed into a problem of optimal bundle pricing. These conditions are as follows: (i) consumers and sellers have common priors on the probability of each state being realized in the future, (ii) consumers are risk-neutral, (iii) sellers can commit to spot prices, and (iv) consumers and sellers discount the future at the same rate. The result allows both researchers and practitioners to extend and/or apply the findings from the vast literature on bundling to advance selling problems, and vice versa. We highlight several insights that are particularly relevant, such as the importance of the dependence of consumer valuations across states on the profitability of advance selling in the base case of two states as well as in the cases of more than two states or with possible competition in some of the states.

Optimal Advance Selling Strategy under Price Commitment

AbstractThis paper studies a two‐period model of advance selling with experienced and inexperienced consumers. It concludes that advance selling weakly dominates no advance selling, and the optimal advance selling price may be at a discount, at a premium or at the regular selling price. Conditions for each possible advance selling strategy to prevail are characterized. However, without experienced consumers in the market, there are no incentives for the retailer to implement an advance selling price premium. How the consumer composition affects the retailer's optimal pricing strategy and profit is also examined.

Contests, Managerial Incentives, Stock Price Manipulation, and Advance Selling Strategies: Introduction

Contests, Managerial Incentives, Stock Price Manipulation, and Advance Selling Strategies: Introduction

The Equivalence of Bundling and Advance Sales

We show that a monopolist's problem of optimal advance selling strategy can be mathematically transformed into a problem of optimal bundling strategy if four conditions hold: i. consumers and the firm agree on the probability of the states occurring, ii. the firm pre-commits to the spot prices to be charged in the advance selling stage, iii. consumers are risk-neutral, and iv. consumers and the firm do not have time preferences or when they do have time preferences, they discount future at the same rate. The result allows both researchers and practitioners to apply the insights from the well-developed vast literature on bundling to advance selling problems. In particular, we show that advance selling is more profitable than spot selling when consumer valuations across the states are independent or negatively dependent or positively dependent up to a point. We furthermore illustrate the effect of advance selling on the spot prices and consumer welfare: When the firm offers advance selling discounts, it sets higher spot prices, so consumers who do not buy in advance are worse off due to the firm offering advance selling discounts. We extend our analysis to the cases of more than two states and competition only in one of the states. We also show how advance selling can be used as an entry deterrence strategy.

Advance Selling Without Showing the Price? The Roles of Anecdotal Reasoning and Capacity

Motivated by the recent practice, we study the advance selling strategy without showing the price (which may be coined as pricing). We postulate that customers have boundedly rational expectations via anecdotal reasoning to anticipate the firm's pricing strategy. This bounded rationality thus induces the firm to strategically randomize prices to create intentional uncertainty for customers' decision making, even in the absence of demand and valuation uncertainties. Scarce capacity creates availability obfuscation (on top of stock-out risk) and may reduce the incentive for price obfuscation. We further find that if customers are not highly strategic (i.e., forward-looking), it is optimal to charge a fixed price that coincides with the optimal price with fully rational customers. Demand uncertainty does not influence the optimality of price obfuscation but tends to weaken its magnitude, and customers' valuation uncertainty may sometimes intensify the firm's incentives to obfuscate. Our study provides a novel behavioral explanation for the recent practice of probabilistic pricing.

Pricing Restaurant Reservations: Dealing with No-Shows

Reservation no-shows lead to wasted capacity in restaurants. In this paper we consider two remedies: punishing no-shows by charging fees and encouraging show-ups by giving discounts. We model the restaurant as a service queue and its reservation policy as an advance selling strategy. When customers make reservations in advance, they face uncertainty in the value of (future) consumption. Reservation holders commit to show up and bear the risk of incurring a no-show penalty in return for a no-wait guarantee. We solve for the restaurant’s optimal pricing policy and no-show penalty. Our analysis suggests that restaurants should charge a no-show penalty as high as the price of meal while giving a discount to reservation holders for the meal. These results are consistent with the current practice of some high-end restaurants selling non-refundable tickets for their prix-xe menus where ticket holders lose the face value of the ticket when they fail to show up. Also, there are online reservation systems that give discounts to customers making restaurant reservations through their website. Our results also suggest that as a restaurant faces a larger potential market, it should allocate less capacity for reservation customers. When the market size exceeds a certain threshold, the restaurant is better o if it stops taking reservations.

Real Options Applied to Consumer Goods: A Look at Option Pricing in Sports Tournaments

This paper demonstrates that both consumer utility and event organizer profits increase when tournaments played at neutral sites sell tickets via options, which are exercisable only if the desired team reaches a given round of the tournament, and advanced selling; rather than just utilizing an advance selling strategy. This approach yields a separating equilibrium pricing strategy. Through this ticket pricing strategy, the organizer can realize a significant increase in profits as a result of a separating equilibrium. Simultaneously consumer welfare increases as fans know, with certainty, they have tickets to the game if their team makes it. If these options were offered by participants instead of organizer it allows them to smooth their revenues over time.