报告题目： The Optimization of Inbound Marketing: Assortment Planning, Pricing and Paid Advertising
报 告 人： 薛巍立 东南大学
报告时间：2023年10月18日(周三) 15:00-16:30
报告地点：中国科学院大学中关村校区教学楼S406
腾讯会议：816-5319-3902
内容摘要
Inbound marketing has gained widespread adoption as a strategy aimed at attracting web traffic, stimulating sales, and enhancing revenue generation. In this study, we employ a variant of the multinomial logit (MNL) model to delineate the impact of inbound marketing, wherein whether a consumer will make a purchase from a retailer if only if she is attracted by certain prominent products offered—examples of such products include those with high ratings or products that have been advertised. Through an empirical investigation employing data sourced from JD.com, our findings furnish empirical support for the efficacy of the proposed model, which demonstrates a discernible advantage in predictive accuracy when juxtaposed with the conventional MNL and mixed MNL models. Subsequently, we undertake an analysis of a retailer’s optimization of inbound marketing strategies, specifically delving into assortment planning, pricing management, and paid advertising, respectively. For assortment planning, we establish the NP-completeness of this problem and devise a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS). Notably, we reveal that the inclusion of high-revenue, low-preference-weight prominent products consistently offers a constant-factor approximation. Turning to pricing management, we derive the optimal pricing strategy and unveil that pricing decisions for less conspicuous products may exhibit non-monotonic behavior with respect to their total preference weight, reflecting a tradeoff between the market share and the revenue margin. In the realm of paid advertising, we also present an FPTAS as a solution approach. Lastly, leveraging the choice model we have proposed, we extend our analysis by exploring a Stackelberg game scenario involving two competing firms engaged in assortment planning and pricing management strategies, respectively.
主讲人简介
薛巍立，东南大学教授、博导、经济管理学院副院长。主要研究方向为品类与库存管理，数字化运营管理。在Management Science, Operations Research, Production and Operations Management, Transportation Science等管理科学国际主流SCI/SSCI发表论文40多篇。主持了包括国家自然科学基金优秀青年科学基金（2018年）、国家自然科学基金重点项目（2022年）在内的多项国家级和省部级项目；获得了江苏省哲学社会科学优秀成果三等奖等多个科研奖项。
