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Research
The NRF Business of Retail Initiative at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business supports faculty-driven research that addresses critical challenges in the retail industry. Through close collaboration with retail partners, the initiative generates actionable insights, informs business practice, and contributes to the ongoing transformation of the retail sector.
Retail Traffic, Technology, and the Future of Promotion Measurement Professor Ronald Goodstein Key Finding : Tracking shopper arrival traffic gives retailers a more accurate measure of promotional success and helps optimize staffing, inventory, and operations.
Read the Full Paper Brand Visibility and Marketing in the Age of AI Professor Luc Wathieu Key Finding : Brands with clear and consistent, digital information are more likely to be recommended by generative AI, making AI visibility a critical part of modern marketing strategy.
Read the Full Paper Consumer Behavior using Product Customization Professor Suh Yoeh Kim and Rebecca Hamilton Key Finding : Product customization experiences encourage repeat customization and builds long-term customer value through increased spending and engagement.
Read the Full Paper
Published Papers
Consumer Behavior Consumer Psychology (March 10, 2022) Zhongbin Wang, Luyi Yang, Shiliang Cui, Sezer Ülkü And Yong-pin Zhou. “Pooling Agents For Customer-intensive Services .” Operations Research (March 9, 2022).
Key Finding: Pooling service agents improves response efficiency and customer satisfaction in high-demand services.
Shawn Mankad, Masha Shunko And Qiuping Yu. “Too Close For Comfort? Understanding Peer Effects In Large Franchised Networks .” SSRN Electronic Journal (August 26, 2021).
Key Finding: Customers’ comfort and behavior are strongly shaped by those around them in large retail networks.
A. R. Shaheen Hosany And Rebecca W. Hamilton. “Family Responses To Resource Scarcity.” Journal Of The Academy Of Marketing Science (June 30, 2022) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-022-00882-7.
Yuechen Wu, Rebecca W. Hamilton, Nicole You Jeung Kim And Rebecca K. Ratner. “Navigating Shared Consumption Experiences: Clarity About A Partner’s Interests Increases Enjoyment .” Journal of Marketing Research (March 2, 2021): 002224372110028.
Sandra J. Milberg, Andres Cuneo, Monica Silva And Ronald C. Goodstein. “Parent Brand Susceptibility To Negative Feedback Effects From Brand Extensions: A Meta‐analysis Of Experimental Consumer Findings .” Journal Of Consumer Psychology (December 30, 2021).
Sezer Ülkü, Chris Hydock And Shiliang Cui. “Making The Wait Worthwhile: Experiments On The Effect Of Queueing On Consumption .” Management Science, 66, 3 (March 1, 2020): 1149-1171.
Blanchard, Simon J., Tatiana L. Dyachenko, and Keri L. Kettle. “Locational choices: Modeling consumer preferences for proximity to others in reserved seating venues .” Journal of Marketing Research 57, no. 5 (2020): 878-899.
Debora V. Thompson, Ishani Banerji And Rebecca W. Hamilton. “Scarcity Of Choice: The Effects Of Childhood Socioeconomic Status On Consumers’ Responses To Substitution .” Journal of The Association For Consumer Research 5, 4 (October 1, 2020): 415-426.
Rebecca Hamilton, Debora Thompson, Sterling Bone, Lan Nguyen Chaplin, Vladas Griskevicius, Kelly Goldsmith, Ronald Hill, Deborah Roedder John, Chiraag Mittal, Thomas O’guinn, Paul Piff, Caroline Roux, Anuj Shah And Meng Zhu. “The Effects Of Scarcity On Consumer Decision Journeys .” Journal of The Academy of Marketing Science , 47, 3 (May 1, 2019): 532-550.
Rebecca W. Hamilton, Chiraag Mittal, Anuj Shah, Debora V. Thompson And Vladas Griskevicius. “How Financial Constraints Influence Consumer Behavior: An Integrative Framework .” Journal of Consumer Psychology , 29, 2 (April 1, 2019): 285-305.
Arens, Zachary G., and Rebecca W. Hamilton. “The substitution strategy dilemma: Substitute selection versus substitute effectiveness .” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 46 (2018): 130-146.
Kettle, Keri L., Remi Trudel, Simon J. Blanchard, and Gerald Häubl. “Repayment concentration and consumer motivation to get out of debt .” Journal of Consumer Research 43, no. 3 (2016): 460-477.
Blanchard, Simon J., Kurt A. Carlson, and Jamie D. Hyodo. “The favor request effect: Requesting a favor from consumers to seal the deal .” Journal of Consumer Research 42, no. 6 (2016): 985-1001.
Claudiu V. Dimofte, Ronald C. Goodstein And Anne M. Brumbaugh. “A Social Identity Perspective On Aspirational Advertising: Implicit Threats To Collective Self‐esteem And Strategies To Overcome Them .” Journal Of Consumer Psychology, 25, 3 (July 1, 2015): 416-430. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2014.12.001.
Retail Technology & AI Yin, Mingzhang, Ziwei Cong, and Jia Liu. “Unraveling Multifaceted User Preferences on Digital Platforms: A Bayesian Deep-Learning Approach.” Forthcoming at Marketing Science (2026).
Key Finding: Retail and digital platforms can improve personalization and customer experience by using Bayesian deep learning to identify consumers evolving preferences.
Cinthia B. Satornino, Dhruv Grewal, Abhijit Guha, Elisa B. Schweiger And Ronald C. Goodstein. “The Perks And Perils Of Artificial Intelligence Use In Lateral Exchange Markets.” Journal Of Business Research, 158 (March 1, 2023): 113580. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113580 .
Key Finding: Artificial Intelligence can enhance retail-like marketplaces by improving search recommendations.
Blanchard, Simon J., Jacob Goldenberg, Koen Pauwels, and David A. Schweidel. “Promoting data richness in consumer research: How to develop and evaluate articles with multiple data sources .” Journal of Consumer Research 49, no. 2 (2022): 359-372.
Mümin Kurtuluş, Alper Nakkas And Sezer Ülkü. “Allocation Of Operational Decisions In Retail Supply Chains .” IISE Transactions (January 13, 2022): 1-12.
Daniel Villanova, Anand V. Bodapati, Nancy M. Puccinelli, Michael Tsiros, Ronald C. Goodstein, Tarun Kushwaha, Rajneesh Suri, Henry Ho, Renee Brandon And Cheryl Hatfield. “Retailer Marketing Communications In The Digital Age: Getting The Right Message To The Right Shopper At The Right Time .” Journal Of Retailing (February 1, 2021).
Rajdeep Grewal, Sachin Gupta And Rebecca Hamilton. “Marketing Insights From Multimedia Data :.” Journal of Marketing Research, 58, 6 (December 1, 2021): 1025-1033. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437211054601.
Yu, Qiuping, Masha Shunko, and Shawn Mankad. “A quality value chain network: Linking supply chain quality to customer lifetime value .” Kelley School of Business Research Paper 17-43 (2017).
Pricing & Promotions Chun, SoYeon and Rebecca W. Hamilton. “Should I Pay with Money or Redeem Points for This Purchase? Effects of Exchange Rate Stability on Loyalty Point Redemption .” Journal of Marketing Research, 61, 5 (October 2024): 858-871.
Key Finding: Consumers are more likely to redeem loyalty points when point-to-currency exchange rates are stable and predictable.
Chris Hydock and Luc Wathieu. “Not Just About Price: How Benefit Focus Determines Consumers’ Retailer Pricing Strategy Preference .” Journal of Consumer Research (August 1, 2023)
Key Finding: Consumers’ preferred pricing strategies depend on whether they focus more on monetary savings or other benefits, not just the price itself.
Anna G. Devlin, Wedad J. Elmaghraby And Rebecca W. Hamilton. “Partitioning Cash Flows To Overcome Retailer Aversion To Stocking New Products .” Decision Sciences (January 29, 2021).
Sawant, Rajeev J., Mahima Hada, and Simon J. Blanchard. “Contractual discrimination in franchise relationships .” Journal of Retailing 97, no. 3 (2021): 405-423.
Ajay T. Abraham And Rebecca W. Hamilton. “When Does Partitioned Pricing Lead To More Favorable Consumer Preferences?: Meta-analytic Evidence. ” Journal of Marketing Research , 55, 5 (October 1, 2018): 686-703.
Anna G. Devlin, Wedad Elmaghraby And Rebecca W. Hamilton. “Why Do Suppliers Choose Wholesale Price Contracts? End-of-season Payments Disincentivize Retailer Marketing Effort .” Journal of The Academy of Marketing Science , 46, 2 (March 1, 2018): 212-233.
Blanchard, Simon J., Mahima Hada, and Kurt A. Carlson. “Specialist competitor referrals: How salespeople can use competitor referrals for nonfocal products to increase focal product sales .” Journal of Marketing 82, no. 4 (2018): 127-145.
Epstein, Leonardo D., Arturo A. Flores, Ronald C. Goodstein, and Sandra J. Milberg. “A new approach to measuring retail promotion effectiveness: A case of store traffic .” Journal of Business Research 69, no. 10 (2016): 4394-4402.
Service and Customer Experience Consumer Psychology (March 10, 2022) Zhongbin Wang, Luyi Yang, Shiliang Cui, Sezer Ülkü And Yong-pin Zhou. “Pooling Agents For Customer-intensive Services .” Operations Research (March 9, 2022).
Key Finding: Pooling service agents improves response efficiency and customer satisfaction in high-demand services.
Shawn Mankad, Masha Shunko And Qiuping Yu. “Too Close For Comfort? Understanding Peer Effects In Large Franchised Networks .” SSRN Electronic Journal (August 26, 2021).
Key Finding: Performance and operational decisions within franchise networks are influenced by nearby peer locations, creating measurable spillover effects.
Qiuping Yu, Shawn Mankad And Masha Shunko. “Evidence Of The Unintended Labor Scheduling Implications Of The Minimum Wage .” SSRN Electronic Journal (June 10, 2021).
Rebecca Hamilton, Shannon Lantzy, Yu-Jen Chen, Katherine Stewart. “Online Reviews of Credence Service Providers: What Do Consumers Evaluate, Do Other Consumers Believe the Reviews, and Are Interventions Needed? .” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 40, 1 (January 2021): 27-44.
Qiuping Yu, Gad Allon, Achal Bassamboo And Seyed Iravani. “Managing Customer Expectations And Priorities In Service Systems .” Management Science , 64, 8 (September 1, 2018): 3942-3970.
Hamilton, Rebecca W., Roland T. Rust, and Chekitan S. Dev. “Which features increase customer retention .” MIT Sloan Management Review 58, no. 2 (2017): 79-84.
Hamilton, Rebecca W., Roland T. Rust, Michel Wedel and Chekitan Dev. “Return on Service Amenities .” Journal of Marketing Research , 54 (February 2017): 96-110.
Kirmani, Amna, Rebecca W. Hamilton, Debora V. Thompson, and Shannon Lantzy. “Doing well versus doing good: The differential effect of underdog positioning on moral and competent service providers .” Journal of Marketing 81, no. 1 (2017): 103-117.
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