Scholars@Duke
Devavrat Purohit

Devavrat Purohit

Ford Motor Company Distinguished Professor in Global Marketing
Fuqua School of Business
purohit@duke.edu
Box 90120, Durham, NC 27708-0120
A339 Fuqua Sch of Bus, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Publications

Allowing consumers to bundle themselves: The profitability of family plans

Journal Article Marketing Science · November 1, 2018 Telecommunications service is an important and growing market, with worldwide revenue exceeding $2.2 trillion in 2016. In the U.S. market, the total number of mobile wireless connections has grown from 279.6 million in 2008 to 396 million in 2016. All the ... Full text Cite

The strategic role of exchange promotions

Journal Article Marketing Science · January 1, 2016 An exchange promotion allows consumers to turn in an old good and receive a discount toward the purchase of a new product. The old good that is turned in can either be within the same category as the new good or it may be in a different category. For examp ... Full text Cite

Turn-and-earn incentives with a product line

Journal Article Management Science · February 1, 2014 When manufacturers do not have sufficient capacity to meet demand and cannot increase prices, they have to determine other methods to allocate goods among retailers. A common allocation mechanism is based on a retailer's sales history: a retailer that has ... Full text Cite

A reflection on analytical work in marketing: Three points of consensus

Journal Article Marketing Letters · June 1, 2012 This article presents three points of consensus about game-theoretic work in marketing: First, equilibrium analysis is necessary for studying situations that have strategic interactions. In many cases, empirical examination of these strategic scenarios is ... Full text Cite

A strategic perspective on durable goods

Journal Article Marketing Science · January 1, 2012 Full text Cite

Music downloads and the flip side of digital rights management

Journal Article Marketing Science · January 1, 2011 Digital rights management (DRM) is an important yet controversial issue in the information goods markets. Although DRM is supposed to help copyright owners by protecting digital content from illegal copying or distribution, it is controversial because DRM ... Full text Cite

Forward buying by retailers

Journal Article Journal of Marketing Research · January 1, 2010 Conventional wisdom in marketing holds that (1) retailer forward buying is a consequence of manufacturer trade promotions and (2) stockpiling units helps the retailer but hurts the manufacturer. This article provides a deeper understanding of forward buyin ... Full text Cite

Strategic Planning in Unstable Environments

Journal Article Long Range Planning · February 1, 2007 This article draws from a multinational survey of 886 firms to show that as environmental instability increases so does planning. However, certain planning dimensions are more strongly associated with environmental instability: in particular generative pla ... Full text Cite

The role of production lead time and demand uncertainty in marketing durable goods

Journal Article Management Science · January 1, 2007 Firms often have to make their production decisions under conditions of demand uncertainty. This is especially true for product categories such as automobiles and technology goods where the lead time needed for manufacturing forces firms to make production ... Full text Cite

"Let me talk to my manager": Haggling in a competitive environment

Journal Article Marketing Science · March 1, 2004 Although negotiating over prices with sellers is common in many markets such as automobiles, furniture, services, consumer electronics, etc., it is not clear how a haggling price policy can help a firm gain a strategic advantage or whether it is even susta ... Full text Cite

Strategic Decentralization and Channel Coordination

Journal Article Quantitative Marketing and Economics · March 2004 Full text Cite

Effect of Manufacturer Reputation, Retailer Reputation, and Product Warranty on Consumer Judgments of Product Quality: A Cue Diagnosticity Framework

Journal Article Journal of Consumer Psychology · January 1, 2001 In this article, we examine how consumers assess product quality when confronted with multiple cues. Based on cue diagnosticity, a conceptual framework is developed that differentiates between cue types and suggests that the diagnosticity of some cue types ... Full text Cite

Competition in durable goods markets: The strategic consequences of leasing and selling

Journal Article Marketing Science · January 1, 1999 In marketing durable goods, manufacturers use varying degrees of leasing and selling to consumers, e.g., cars, photocopiers, personal computers, airplanes, etc. The question that this raises is whether the distinction between leases and sales is simply one ... Full text Cite

Leasing and selling: Optimal marketing strategies for a durable goods firm

Journal Article Management Science · January 1, 1998 This paper analyzes the problems associated with marketing a durable through leases and sales. Academic research in this area has argued that in a monopolistic environment, leasing dominates selling. Hence, leasing and selling should not co-exist and the f ... Full text Cite

Dual distribution channels: The competition between rental agencies and dealers

Journal Article Marketing Science · January 1, 1997 Managerial decisions involving marketing channels are among the most critical that an organization must make. Part of the reason for this importance is that relationships between manufacturers and their intermediaries usually involve long-term commitments ... Full text Cite

The price of safety

Journal Article Journal of Consumer Research · June 1, 1996 This article presents a simple economic model to assess consumers' valuation of safety features. In particular, we model the benefit from safety as the reduction in the probability of death, and the associated economic value of this reduction. We then appl ... Full text Cite

Playing the role of buyer and seller: The mental accounting of trade-ins

Journal Article Marketing Letters · March 1, 1995 This paper examines the role of trade-ins in consumers' purchases of new durable goods. We argue that even if the net price paid by consumers who trade in an old product remains the same, varying the offer on the trade-in substantially affects consumers' s ... Full text Cite

Marketing Channels and the Durable Goods Monopolist: Renting versus Selling Reconsidered

Journal Article Journal of Economics Management Strategy · January 1, 1995 Research on durable goods has shown that because of a time inconsistency problem, a monopolist manufacturer prefers to rent rather than sell its product. We reexamine the relative profitability of renting versus selling from a marketing perspective. In par ... Full text Cite

What Should You Do When Your Competitors Send in the Clones?

Journal Article Marketing Science · November 1994 This paper develops a model to address an important problem facing a manufacturer of a durable product. That is, how can it plan its new product introductions to minimize the obsolescence of the old product, preserve its market for the new product ... Full text Cite

Rentals, Sales and Buybacks: Managing Secondary Distribution Channels

Journal Article Journal of Marketing Research · 1994 Cite

Exploring the Relationship Between the Markets for New and Used Durable Goods: The Case of Automobiles

Journal Article Marketing Science · May 1992 Given that durable products are long-lived, there exists the possibility of secondary markets for used products as well as the potential for product obsolescence. This is an important issue in markets where technology changes rapidly, because the ... Full text Cite

Durable Goods and Product Obsolescence

Journal Article Marketing Science · February 1989 The issue of product obsolescence is addressed by examining the optimal sales strategy of a monopolist firm that may introduce an improved version of its current product. Consumers' expectations of a forthcoming product lowers the price that they ... Full text Cite