Opaque Products Research Articles

Improving the fitness of Holothuria arguinensis larvae through different microalgae diets

Development and design of adequate feeding protocols on sea cucumber larvae are necessary for improvements on larvae growth, survival and production of competent juveniles. This work assessed the Holothuria arguinensis larvae growth and survival, fed with three different single microalgae diets of Chaetoceros calcitrans, Isochrysis galbana and Tetraselmis chui, and two microalgae diets based on a combination of C. calcitrans and T. chuii (C:T; 1:1) and C. calcitrans, T. chuii and I. galbana (C:T:I; 1:1:1) during 2 months. Holothuria arguinensis larvae fed with T:C:I, showed higher survival and larger larval and stomach sizes than the ones fed with the other diets. Comparing the results obtained from the single diets, H. arguinensis larvae fed with I. galbana grew and survived better during the first 5 days. However, higher growth was obtained on the larvae fed with C. calcitrans from day 5 to day 12; since this day, larvae fed with T. chuii showed the largest size. These results could be related to the different microalgae size and morphology, in addition to the nutritional value of the different microalgae used. However, no competent larvae that metamorphosed into doliolaria were obtained during this experiment. The tanks used were transparent, which could be causing light stress to the larvae, since competent larvae were obtained in opaque production tanks in our aquaculture installations during the same time period. The combined diet of C. calcitrans, T. chuii and I. galbana (C:T:I) could improve the growth and larvae competency of H. arguinensis.

Pemanfaatan Tepung Tulang Ikan Tenggiri untuk Meningkatkan Daya Terima dan Kandungan Kalsium Biskuit dan Opak Singkong

<p><strong><em>Background:</em></strong><em> Lampung Province is one of the provinces that has considerable marine fishery resource potential. <strong>Purpose:</strong> Mackerel bone flour has the potential to be developed because the mackerel fish bone meal contains high calcium. <strong>Method</strong></em><strong><em>s</em></strong><strong><em>:</em></strong><em> This research is a laboratory experimental study. The treatment is done by adding fish bone meal into biscuits and opaque products. Addition of fish bone meal to each product consists of 6 levels with different concentrations and 3 repetitions. </em><em>Data analysis using univariate analysis and bivariate analysis using analysis of variance (Anova) test.</em><em> </em><strong><em>Results:</em></strong><em> The results showed that the concentration of addition of mackerel fish bone meal most favored by Panelists on biscuit products in formula 3, namely biscuits with the addition of mackerel bone flour concentration of 5% and cassava opaque products in formula 3, namely cassava opaque with additional concentrations mackerel fish bone meal by 20%. Calcium content in formula 3 (5%) biscuits is 0.72%, cassava formula 3 (20%) is 0.131%. <strong>Conclusion:</strong> Panelists most like biscuit products with the addition of 5% mackerel fish bone flour and 0.72% calcium content, while cassava Opak is preferred with the addition of 20% mackerel fish bone meal containing 0.131% calcium.</em><em></em></p>

When Investor Incentives and Consumer Interests Diverge: Private Equity in Higher Education

This paper studies how private equity buyouts create value in higher education, a sector with opaque product quality and intense government subsidy. With novel data on 88 private equity deals involving 994 schools, we show that buyouts lead to higher tuition and per-student debt. Exploiting loan limit increases, we find that private equity-owned schools better capture government aid. After buyouts, we observe lower education inputs, graduation rates, loan repayment rates, and earnings among graduates. Neither school selection nor student body changes fully explain the results. The results indicate that in a subsidized industry maximizing value may not improve consumer outcomes.

Five-star quality at three-star prices? Opaque booking and hotel service expectations

ABSTRACTWhile opaque products and distribution channels are increasingly popular, little is known about how customers perceive the quality of opaque hotel rooms. This study examined how price and star rating affect customers’ expectations when booking through opaque channels, and explored if different market segments vary in their expectations. An experimental design with six price and star-rating scenarios was employed. As predicted, expectations were significantly lower in opaque bookings. Moreover, customers were willing to compromise certain aspects of five-star service quality in exchange for opaque prices, such as room décor. Findings also revealed that customers who typically stayed at five-star hotels had the biggest gap in their expectations of three-star versus five-star hotel rooms of similar prices. As opaque selling is relatively new in Asia, this study is the first to explore customers’ perceptions of opaque booking from the perspective of young, Hong Kong consumers. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The Power of Opaque Products in Pricing

We study the power of selling opaque products, i.e., products where a feature (such as color) is hidden from the customer until after purchase. Opaque products, which are sold with a price discount, have emerged as a powerful vehicle to increase revenue for many online retailers and service providers that offer horizontally differentiated items. In the opaque selling models we consider, each of the items (colors) are sold at a single common price alongside opaque products which may correspond to various subsets of the items. We consider two types of customers, risk-neutral ones who assume they will receive a truly random item from the opaque product, and pessimistic ones who assume they will receive their least favorite item from the opaque product. We benchmark opaque selling against two common selling strategies: discriminatory pricing, where one explicitly charges different prices for each item, and single pricing, where a single price is charged for all the items. We give a sharp characterization of when opaque selling outperforms discriminatory pricing. Namely, this result holds for situations where all customers are pessimistic, or the item valuations are supported on two points. In the latter case, we also show that opaque selling with just one opaque product guarantees at least 71.9% of the revenue from discriminatory pricing. We then provide upper bounds on the potential revenue increase from opaque selling strategies over single pricing, and describe cases where the increase can be significantly more than that of discriminatory pricing. Finally, we provide pricing algorithms alongside a numerical study to assess the power of opaque selling under various valuation distributions.

Synthesis and structure of transparent zinc-niobate-tellurite glasses with low hydroxyl content

Low-hydroxyl (OH)-content, transparent zinc-niobate-tellurite glasses (TeO2-Nb2O5-ZnO and TeO2-Nb2O5-ZnCl2) were synthesized by using dry-air atmospheres, stirring of the melt, and preheat treatment before melt preparation. A low OH level (79.8±6.3ppm) was achieved by performing a preheat treatment of mixed raw chemicals with zinc chloride and then melting in both open- and dry-air atmospheres with several counts of intermittent stirring. However, this sequence of processes resulted mainly in non-crystallized, opaque products. The basis of this opacity was investigated by performing Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) measurements on both the opaque and transparent glasses. Raman spectroscopy revealed that the proportion of Te–O–Te bonds, relative to tellurite unit structures (TeO4, TeO3+1, and TeO3), in the opaque glasses decreased with increasing isolated structures of TeO32−. This decrease resulted possibly from atomic-scaled inhomogeneity and immiscible domain formation in the melts and corresponding glasses, which have less amounts of residual OH groups.

Selling through Priceline? On the impact of name-your-own-price in competitive market

ABSTRACTPriceline.com patented the innovative pricing strategy, Name-Your-Own-Price (NYOP), that sells opaque products through customer-driven pricing. In this article, we study how competitive sellers with substitutable, non-replenishable goods may sell their products (i) as regular goods, through a direct channel at posted prices, and possibly at the same time (ii) as opaque goods, through a third-party channel that engages in NYOP. We establish a stylized model framework that incorporates three sets of stakeholders: two competing sellers, an intermediary NYOP firm, and a sequence of customers. We first characterize customers’ optimal purchasing/bidding decisions under various channel structures and then analyze corresponding sellers’ dynamic pricing equilibrium. We conduct extensive numerical studies to illustrate the impact of inventory and time on equilibrium prices, expected profit, and channel strategies. We find that the implications are highly dependent on channel structure (dual versus single). In particular, more inventory may reduce one’s expected profit under the dual structure, whereas this never happens when a seller only uses the direct channel. Interestingly, although competing sellers seldom benefit from the existence of NYOP channels, it is possible that one or both of the sellers adopt it in equilibrium. We identify timing, inventory levels, and channel opaqueness as key drivers for NYOP adoption and characterize equilibrium areas for each type of channel structure.

OUP accepted manuscript

We provide elementary insights into the effectiveness of certification to increase market transparency. In a market with opaque product quality, sellers use certification as a signaling device, while buyers use it as an inspection device. This difference alone implies that seller-certification yields more transparency and higher social welfare. Under buyer-certification profit maximizing certifiers further limit transparency, but because seller-certification yields larger profits, active regulation concerning the mode of certification is not needed. These findings are robust and widely applicable to, for instance, patents, automotive parts, and financial products.

Intervention The Giving of Food Tradisional Opak-Opak With Enrichment of the Yellow Tail Fish and Powder Leaves Moringa as an Food Alternative of Distraction Nutrious for Pregnant Women KEK in the Districh North Lombok

Background: Pregnant women who suffer Energy Chronic Defisiensi (KEK) have a greater risk of morbidity, especially in comparison to normal pregnant women. As a result, the risk for having a baby with low birth weight increased. KEK pregnant women in North Lombok region increased from year to year. Researchers are making efforts to prevent it. Researchers gave “Opak” Typical North Lombok has innovated by adding Moringa leaf powder and Ikan ekor kuning. The purpose of research creates opaque products enriched nutrients Opak Kelor Ikan (OKI), knowing acceptance of pregnant women against product, reviewing and analyzing the ease of getting the product to the target product sustainability of provision. Methods: Pre-experimental research methods for the design of the product, then the organoleptic tests, selected the best products, test and product proximate ready to be given to the respondent. OKI was given for 30 days. Results: Design making panelists preferred OIC is the use of fish and moringa ratio 1:2. The content of nutrients best OKI 2.64% protein, 4.07% fat, carbohydrates 83.9%, and 2.34% ash. Meeting the needs of nutrients from the OKI to snack pregnant women is about 3–4 pieces (65 grams). Samples were feeling good (61.7%), slightly bitter at 58.3%, 96.7% said crunchy. Ease of getting OKI, easy (91.7%). How to get, walking (86.7%). Access to get in the shop (83.3%). Sustainability of the OKI shows like only 32.53%, but the majority of respondents willing to continue with the 73%. depth interview in pregnant women happy diberikan OKI because these foods commonly consumed much less nutritious for babies. The midwife stated OKI very helpful in disseminating knowledge about nutritious food for pregnant women. Stakeholders from religious leaders expressed readiness to support and dissemination of information in any religious lectures delivered so that people become more familiar with the OKI. Conclusion: OKI can be given to pregnant women and can be KEK traditional nutritious snack. OKI to be sustainable. Recommendation: Storability test needs to be done to determine the expired date.

Retailing with Opaque Products

An opaque product is a product where the retailer hides one or more attributes of the product until after it has been sold. Historically, opaque products have been used in the hotel and airline industries where customers can purchase a room or flight without knowing the brand name. In this work, we show that using opaque products in the retail industry, where there are nonperishable goods and supply chain costs, may also be beneficial. Although opaque products have traditionally been used as a vehicle for price discrimination, we show that opaque products can also be used as a vehicle for inventory management and therefore lower supply chain costs.In our model, customers arrive dynamically and choose between two substitutable products and an opaque product, which is sold at a discount. Customers that purchase the opaque product will be allocated one of the two substitutable products at the discretion of the retailer. For serving demand, joint replenishment and holding costs are incurred by the retailer. We prove that offering an opaque product can strictly improve the profit of the retailer, even without altering the prices of the original products. We also provide a simple method to estimate demand in an opaque selling environment based on the demand without an opaque product, which may be of independent interest. Finally, we analytically show that using opaque products to balance inventory has dramatic cost advantages, even when the amount of opaque products sold is relatively small.

Optimizing Variable Opaque Product Design in E-commerce Based on Blind Booking

Abstract As a newly emerging marketing mode, opaque selling has achieved great success in practice and attracted wide attention from academic. Most existing researches related to opaque selling are based on NYOP (Name your own price) or VOP (variable opaque product). In recent years, the NYOP modes opened by service integrators have been fully discussed. With VOP becoming increasingly important for service providers, related investigations are badly needed. In order to promote and guide the application of VOP, key issues such as pricing, opacity determining and positioning are investigated based on Blind booking service of Germanwings. The results specify the basic principles for setting price function and the compute logic for determining opacity scope. By analyzing the relation between customer utility and risk preference factor, the VOP positioning problem is settled from the aspect of customers’ channel selecting. The analytical outcome also verifies the effectiveness of opaque selling in market segmentation. Finally, a numeric example is taken to explain how the results of this paper can be used in practice.

When Does the General Public Lose Trust in Banks?

When does the general public lose trust in banks? We provide empirical evidence using responses by Dutch survey participants to eight hypothetical scenarios. We find that members of the general public care strongly about executive compensation. Negative media reports, falling stock prices, and opaque product information also affect trust in banks. Experiencing a bank bailout leads to less concern about government intervention, while experience of a bank failure leads to greater concern on bonuses.

When Does the General Public Lose Trust in Banks?

When does the general public lose trust in banks? We provide empirical evidence using responses by Dutch survey participants to eight hypothetical scenarios. We find that members of the general public care strongly about executive compensation. Negative media reports, falling stock prices, and opaque product information also affect trust in banks. Experiencing a bank bailout leads to less concern about government intervention, while experience of a bank failure leads to greater concern on bonuses.

Opaque Distribution Channels for Competing Service Providers: Posted Price vs. Name-Your-Own-Price Mechanisms

Opaque selling has been widely adopted by service providers in the travel industry to sell off leftover capacity under stochastic demand. We consider a two-stage model to study the impact of different selling mechanisms, posted price (PP) versus name-your-own-price (NYOP), of an opaque reseller on competing service providers who face forward-looking customers. We find that in this environment, providers prefer that the opaque reseller uses a posted price instead of a bidding model. This is because the ability to set retail prices is critical for extracting surplus from customers who wait to purchase from the reseller. Such surplus extraction enables providers to set high prices for advance sales and obtain high profits. The dominance of PP over NYOP disappears, however, when competition between sellers is minimal or absent. We extend our model to multiple opaque resellers who compete in selling off last-minute capacity for service providers and find that our main insights continue to hold with differentiated resellers. Despite providers' preference in favor of PP, there are circumstances under which the opaque reseller earns higher profits under NYOP. Leisure customers might also prefer the bidding mechanism, which allows them to retain some surplus. This can help explain the rapid growth of the NYOP model over the last decade. Our findings are consistent with the evolution of opaque selling in the travel industry, and in particular, the recent trend towards more published price sales for opaque products.

Joint Opaque Selling Systems for Online Travel Agencies

Cet article analyse les ventes opaques qui constituent un canal de distribution alternatif aux canaux traditionnels. Deux variantes sont pratiquées. La première, développée par Hotwire.com repose sur des prix affichés et un service garanti par le vendeur dès le paiement. La seconde, proposée par Priceline.com, fonctionne sur la base d’une sorte de système d’enchères, les clients potentiels formulant un prix pour une offre qui leur sera d’autant plus accessible que le prix proposé est élevé. Nous proposons un modèle analytique permettant de comparer l’application individuelle et simultanée de ces deux variantes par une agence de voyages en ligne en situation de monopole et faisant face à une demande hétérogène. Deux situations sont explorées : une information complète mais imparfaite et une information incomplète et imparfaite. Les résultats obtenus montrent qu’en information complète et imparfaite l’adoption simultanée des deux systèmes n’améliore pas les profits du monopoleur. En revanche, dans le cas où l’information est incomplète, ce qui semble le plus pertinent, l’utilisation des deux canaux opaques accroît le profit joint de la compagnie et de l’intermédiaire, ce qui jette un doute sur le bien-fondé des stratégies retenues actuellement par les intermédiaires.

Using Dynamic Programming Decomposition for Revenue Management with Opaque Products

AbstractOpaque products enable service providers to hide specific characteristics of their service fulfillment from the customer until after purchase. Prominent examples include internet-based service providers selling airline tickets without defining details, such as departure time or operating airline, until the booking has been made. Owing to the resulting flexibility in resource utilization, the traditional revenue management process needs to be modified. In this paper, we extend dynamic programming decomposition techniques widely used for traditional revenue management to develop an intuitive capacity control approach that allows for the incorporation of opaque products. In a simulation study, we show that the developed approach significantly outperforms other well-known capacity control approaches adapted to the opaque product setting. Based on the approach, we also provide computational examples of how the share of opaque products as well as the degree of opacity can influence the results.

케미칼 크랙킹 방법을 이용한 플라스틱 제품의 응력측정에 관한 연구

Residual stress in the injection molded part is originated from thermal shrinkage and shear stress during injection molding process. There are many measurement methods of residual stress in the plastic part. Residual stress in opaque products can be measured by chemical cracking test. This method enables the solvent and specimen to react and to cause cracks. Cracks developed according to the level of residual stress. Thus the stresses in plastic part can be quantitatively measured by counting the number of cracks or measuring the size of cracks. Relationship between stress and number of cracks in a plastic specimen has been investigated in this study. Bergen jig was used to give a strain in the specimens those were molded using PC/PBT and PC/ABS. Solvent for the chemical cracking test was prepared using tetrahydrofuran and methyl alcol with the ratio of 1 to 3. Stresses in the specimen can be calculated by strains those were imposed by Bergen jig. Cracks were developed for stress higher than certain level. The number of cracks increased by second order function for stress.

An analysis of destination choice for opaque airline products using multidimensional binary logit models

We investigate how customers respond to an opaque airline product offered by a European carrier. In this opaque product design, customers are randomly assigned to travel to one of approximately ten destinations; however, for a fee they may exclude one or more destinations from the choice set (or a particular package design) prior to learning which destination they will travel to. We use a multidimensional binary logit model to predict the probability that one or more alternatives will be chosen by a customer. Results show that customers are more likely to pay to exclude destinations located close to the origin airport and destinations that speak the same language as the origin airport. Length of stay, cost of living at the destination, and measures of destination attractiveness are also found to be significant predictors for some package designs. Based on these findings, we offer general recommendations for how to design opaque packages for airline customers.

Improving Airline Revenues with Variable Opaque Products: “Blind Booking” at Germanwings

Airlines often confront the challenge of determining how to profitably sell their distressed inventory (i.e., seats that their revenue management systems forecast will remain unsold). One solution to this problem is to sell this distressed inventory as opaque products via either the airline's own channels or a third party. An extension of the opaque product is the variable opaque product (VOP), whereby the customer can vary the amount of opaqueness in one or more attributes. Germany's leading low-cost airline, Germanwings, tested this concept during a period of more than three years with very encouraging results; the airline experienced a significant increase in revenues. Furthermore, competing airlines have not reacted to this new initiative; thus, it appears that Germanwings has generated a new set of customers. In this paper, we describe the significant results achieved by combining revenue management and marketing insights in the development of a VOP at Germanwings, present business metrics generated by the VOP, and offer insights on the use of VOPs in other industries.

A Choice‐Based Dynamic Programming Approach for Setting Opaque Prices

Opaque pricing is a form of pricing where certain characteristics of the product or service are hidden from the consumer until after purchase. In essence, opaque selling transforms a differentiated good into a commodity. Opaque pricing has become popular in service pricing as it allows firms to sell their differentiated product at higher prices to regular brand loyal customers while simultaneously selling to non‐brand loyal customers at discounted prices. We use a nested logit model in combination with logistic regression and dynamic programming to illustrate how a service firm can optimally set prices on an opaque sales channel. The choice model allows the characterization of consumer trade‐offs when purchasing opaque products while the dynamic programming approach allows the characterization of the optimal pricing policy as a function of inventory and time remaining. We compare optimal prices and expected revenues when dynamic pricing is restricted to daily price changes. We provide an illustrative example using data from an opaque selling mechanism ( Hotwire.com ) and a Washington DC‐based hotel.