Product and Production

Customers often search for information on products before making their purchase decisions. With the emergence of online review platforms, this has become quicker and easier than ever, such that companies must manage customer search to attract and retain customers. How might the common marketing strategy of bundling—where multiple goods or services are sold ... Read More

Research by Xuan Wang of HKUST reveals how large manufacturers can benefit from flexible production systems. In collaboration with US-based scholars, Wang shows that the right kind of flexibility design allows firms with multiple plants and products to adapt to demand uncertainties. By using the methods presented in the paper, such firms can dodge the traps ... Read More

The rapid rise in the number of products globally has dramatically increased retailers’ demand for capacity. However, despite the continuous growth in the demand for products, the availability of retail space has not kept pace and the situation is only getting worse. One would assume then that such a shortage of capacity would negatively impact retailers ... Read More

In today’s fast-changing e-commerce landscape, businesses are increasingly relying on two novel strategies for winning customers: referral marketing and product discounting. However, this promising pairing may have a sting in the tail, according to HKUST’s Hong Xu and Kai-Lung Hui and colleagues. Although individually effective, these two marketing tools may ... Read More

In today’s fast-changing e-commerce landscape, businesses are increasingly relying on two novel strategies for winning customers: referral marketing and product discounting. However, this promising pairing may have a sting in the tail, according to HKUST’s Hong Xu and Kai-Lung Hui and colleagues. Although individually effective, these two marketing tools may ... Read More

Determining the ratio of product price to the marginal cost of production, otherwise known as the markup, is a key question in economics. In terms of the overall economy, markup variation affects the dynamics of inflation, the fluctuation of output and employment over business cycles, and the transmission of macroeconomic policies. At the firm level ... Read More