News Releases

CATONSVILLE, MD, October 16, 2019 – Consumers have been relying on opinion leader recommendations to make choices about product quality and purchases for a long time. It is even more prominent now with the prevalence of influencers on social media platforms. The problem is, when there is a wide variety of the same product, consumers question if a positive recommendation is based on quality or personal preferences.

CATONSVILLE, MD, October 14, 2019 – New research published in the INFORMS journal Management Science finds that an online retailer’s delivery strategy is imperative to that retailer’s success and can be a determinant factor as to whether consumers purchase again. 

CATONSVILLE, MD, October 10, 2019 – The food delivery business, popularized by mobile online services such as Grubhub, OrderUp, and DoorDash, has become a $200 billion industry, which is expected to grow by more than 15% annually over the next five years. New research published in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science reveals how food delivery businesses can implement changes in driver shifts and order delivery structures that can decrease costs and contribute to higher profits.

CATONSVILLE, MD, October 9, 2019 – A gentle nudge in the right direction is sometimes all people need. In this case, new research in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science finds it works when it comes to promoting healthy eating.

CATONSVILLE, MD, October 7, 2019 – Delays and disruptions in airline operations annually result in billions of dollars of additional costs to airlines, passengers and the economy. Airlines strive to mitigate these costs by creating schedules that are less likely to get disrupted or schedules that are easy to repair when there are disruptions—new research in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science has found a solution using a mathematical optimization model.

CATONSVILLE, MD, October 3, 2019 – An estimated $1.9 trillion was made on the top 100 online marketplaces around the world in 2018. In spite of the growth in online marketplace platforms like Amazon, eBay and Etsy, research is limited regarding their fee structure and ranking strategies.

CATONSVILLE, MD, September 25, 2019 – In the video game industry, the ability for gaming companies to track and respond to gamers’ post-purchase play opens up new opportunities to enhance gamer engagement and retention and increase video game revenue. 

CATONSVILLE, MD, September 23, 2019 – Chatbots, which use artificial intelligence to simulate human conversation through voice commands or text chats, incur almost zero marginal costs and can outsell some human employees by four times, so why aren’t they used more often? According to new research, the main contributor is customer pushback.

CATONSVILLE, MD, September 16, 2019– According to new research published in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science (Editor’s note: The source of this research is INFORMS), companies can improve sales performance when they adjust sales commissions for the sale of more popular items. Further, the researchers found that when companies provide incentives to the sales force, that is more cost-effective than offering consumers discount pricing. The research centered on automotive sales at the dealership level.

CATONSVILLE, MD, September 13, 2019 –There are more than 60 million business pages on Facebook and that number is from 2017. With those pages come scores of positive and negative posts generated by Facebook users. What researchers have seen is companies have very little control over what customers post, and negative posts can severely damage brands.