Mays dives into the world of analytical research at 12th annual Marketing Research Camp

Mays Business School hosted the 2018 Mays Marketing Research Camp on April 6, hosted by the Center of Retailing Studies Research Director and Coleman Professor of Marketing Venkatesh “Venky” Shankar. The event presents faculty and Ph.D. students the opportunity to share, hear, and collaborate with some of the top scholars in marketing on the latest empirical, analytical, and behavioral research.

Together, the four speakers from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, and Mays Business School demonstrated how relevant research and marketing studies can advance the world’s prosperity.

Around the world, many grocery chains are developing the “click and collect” format of grocery shopping. This allows customers to order their groceries online, then either pick up the groceries in the store or at another designated location. Katrijn Gielens, Associate Professor of Marketing at Kenan-Flagler Business School, presented research that examines three different types of click-and-collect formats and which one better suits consumer needs.

The three types of click and collect formats include in-store drive, near-store drive, and stand-alone drive. The study is to investigate at what extent the three different types of click and collect formats affect consumer attraction and revenue. The results show that stand-alone drive leads to higher consumer adoption rates and lifts in consumer spending than near-store drive or in-store drive.

One of the biggest questions that is asked in regards to the click and collect format of grocery shopping is, why would retailers want to adopt this format if online shopping is known to suppress impulse buys, therefore bringing revenue down? Leonard Berry, University Distinguished Professor of Marketing, added that retailers do not want to adopt this format, but they have to. “When big-name grocery retailers are adopting the click-and-collect format, everyone else has to as well if they want to compete,” he said.

The remaining talks from the day covered:

• “A Circumplex Model of Compensatory Compensation” by Angela Lee.
• “Understanding the Influence of Content Monetization on Contributor Topic Choice Decision on Social Media” by Sha Yang.
• “Delegation and Consignment in Marketing Channels” by Jeff Cai.

According to Jeff Cai, assistant professor of marketing at Mays, “the consignment agreement helps to alleviate double marginalization and create a win-win outcome for both parties if the total unit handling cost is reduced under consignment practice.”

Cai also found in his study that delegation does not work without information symmetry and demand uncertainty, and the conjunction of delegation and consignment helps to alleviate double marginalization if demand is large and the unit handling cost for retailers is low.

“Both retailers and manufacturers should strive to lower combined unit handling costs,” Cai said. “Therefore, both retailers and manufacturers can be better off by combining delegation with consignment than without either practice.”