Design, Operations and Pricing Issues in Omnichannel Retailing

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Recent years mark the era in which retailers actively engage in developing and integrating multiple sales channels online and offline. Customers have thereby gained unprecedented room and flexibility in their purchasing choice and experience. The pre¬purchase information could be collected directly from in¬ person store visits and/or indirectly through various online channels and platforms. The purchase could be completed at physical stores, from the producers' online channels or third-party marketplaces immediately or after strategic waiting. The fulfillment could be versatile and not particularly bounded by the purchasing channel. A customer may place an order at a local store and have it delivered to doorstep later, or order online and pick it up in person from a store. Along this course, retailers are rewarded with a widened strategy space and a deepened understanding of the customers' value and behavior. In this context, I plan to study the dynamics and opportunities that arise from omnichannel retailing - in particular, the design of product and service offerings, the information provision strategy, the intertemporal pricing, and the supporting inventory and logistic policies, across multiple online and offline channels. This is critical given the shift in consumer behavior and what the market and the global supply chain have experienced or will be facing during and after the COVID pandemic. The program will approach this objective through the following modules: (1)The design of product and service offerings across multiple online and offline channels, and respective information provision strategies. (2)Customer review for online and offline channels and its connection with pricing, quality, and customer purchasing behavior. (3)Intertemporal pricing strategy and its interplay with the product and service design and customer behavior. (4)Cross-channel inventory sharing and transshipment policies. The program will deepen the understanding of the design, operations, and pricing in the omnichannel environment. By considering the practice of channel integration, the program will revisit and explore crucial issues from the stage of design, marketing, to the deployment and coordination, and final delivery of the product or service. The results will enrich omnichannel retailers' understanding on how to best navigate their operational options in the omnichannel environment and bring significant impact to a wide spectrum of supply chain stakeholders across multiple industries.