Manufacturers customarily provide only a few product variants to address the average needs of users in the major segments of markets they serve. When user needs are highly heterogeneous, this approach leaves many seriously dissatisfied. One solution is to enable users to modify products on their own using "innovation toolkits." We explore the effectiveness of this solution in an empirical study of Apache security software. We find high heterogeneity of need in that field, and also find that users modifying their own software to be significantly more satisfied than non-innovating users. We propose that the "user toolkits" solution will be useful in many markets characterized by heterogeneous demand.

The application of Internet-based virtual stock markets (VSMs) is an additional approach that can be used to predict short- and medium-term market developments.The basic concept involves bringing a group of participants together via the Internet and allowing them to trade shares of virtual stocks.These stocks represent a bet on the outcome of future market situations, and their value depends on the realization of these market situations.In this process, a VSM elicits and aggregates the assessments of its participants concerning future market developments.The aim of this article is to evaluate the potential use and the different design possibilities as well as the forecast accuracy and performance of VSMs compared to expert predictions for their application to business forecasting.After introducing the basic idea of using VSMs for business forecasting, we discuss the different design possibilities for such VSMs.In three real-world applications, we analyze the feasibility and forecast accuracy of VSMs, compare the performance of VSMs to expert predictions, and propose a new validity test for VSM forecasts.Finally, we draw conclusions and provide suggestions for future research.

Knowledge about a product’s willingness-to-pay on behalf of its (potential) customers plays a crucial role in many areas of marketing management like pricing decisions or new product development. Numerous approaches to measure willingness-to-pay with differential conceptual foundations and methodological implications have been presented in the relevant literature so far. This article provides the reader with a systematic overview of the relevant literature on these competing approaches and associated schools of thought, recognizes their respective merits and discusses obstacles and issues regarding their adoption to measuring willingness-to-pay. Because of its practical relevance, special focus will be put on indirect surveying techniques and, in particular, conjoint-based applications will be discussed in more detail. The strengths and limitations of the individual approaches are discussed and evaluated from a managerial point of view. Keywords: Willingness-to-pay, pricing, surveying techniques, conjoint measurement.

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with all my love The advent of the Internet and the digitization of music has resulted in a multitude of new challenges and opportunities for the recording industry. So far, sales of digital downloadable music have not compensated for the decrease in CD sales throughout the twentyfirst century. To attract new customers and successfully compete with file-sharing networks, commercial online music services need to meet customer expectations by delivering what they value. Therefore, to increase the understanding of prospective customers, the purpose of this thesis was to explore and describe customer value and target groups within the online music market. Data were collected through a survey of Swedish consumers between 16 and 60 years old. Customer-perceived value of downloadable music, in terms of expected value for money, was found to be quite low. Value could, however, be increased by improving the most important benefits. In addition to fundamental functions, such as

Optimal screening is one of the basic models of contracting under incomplete information, and we study the problem in a quality pricing application. We present a simple numerical method for solving the pricing problem when the firm has limited information about the buyers ’ utility functions. In the method, the firm learns the optimal price schedule as the demand data is collected. We examine what the firm can learn about the preferences by observing the sales, and how the revealed information can be used in adjusting the qualityprice bundles to increase the profit. We analyze the properties of the solution and derive the first-order optimality conditions under different assumptions. We show that the problem can be solved by making use of these optimality conditions together with the buyers’ marginal valuations. The firm can estimate the marginal valuations either by offering linear tariffs or by selling test bundles near the current solution.

Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis.

The iPhone 4 was introduced into the UK market on 24 th June 2010 to significant consumer interest. This clearly exceeded supply through conventional channels, since there was very extensive activity in terms of bidding on eBay auctions for the product. We monitored all eBay transactions on the iPhone 4 for six weeks from introduction, with total transactions amounting to around £1.5m. We analyse determinants of the winning bid in terms of characteristics of the phone, the seller and the buyer. Our most notable and novel finding relative to previous studies is a very significant premium over list price being paid in almost all cases, with positive uplift factors including whether the phone was unlocked and whether it could be sold overseas. Demand fell over time, as evidenced by lower achieved prices, but the fall in price was relatively modest. A significant premium of 32GB over 16GB versions is revealed. *Corresponding author