The adoption of inventory postponement and speculation: An empirical assessment of oligopolistic Internet retailers [An article from: Transportation Research Part E]

This digital document is a journal article from Transportation Research Part E, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Unlike traditional retailers, which use inventory speculation for all their merchandise, Internet book retailers selectively use inventory postponement for specific merchandise items to lower their inventory costs. We develop and test hypotheses that describe merchandise determinants of inventory postponement and speculation at two oligopolistic retailers: Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. We find that merchandise popularity raises both firms' likelihood of inventory speculation. Furthermore, merchandise vintage affects negatively both firms' likelihood of inventory speculation. Merchandise price affects negatively the likelihood of inventory speculation for Amazon.com and positively for Barnesandnoble.com. This may be due to conditions within Barnesandnoble.com, which operates physical and Internet channels.