Speaker: Joline Uichanco, Ross School of Business, University of
Michigan
Date & Time: April 25, 2023, Tuesday 12:30
Place: EA-409
Title: Overcoming the profitability problem of e-commerce retail using
data-driven product framing
Abstract: E-commerce retail is known to suffer from thin profit margins.
Using the data from a major U.S. retailer, we show that jointly planning
product framing and order fulfillment can have a significant impact on
online retailers’ profitability. We study a joint product framing and
order fulfillment problem. In each period, the retailer needs to decide
how to “frame” (i.e., display, rank, price) each product on her website
as well as how to fulfill a new demand. We use techniques such as
randomized algorithms and graph-based algorithms to provide a tractable
solution heuristic. Our proposed policy significantly reduces shipping
costs by using product framing to manage demand so that it occurs close
to the location of the inventory.
Bio: Joline Uichanco is an Associate Professor of Technology &
Operations in the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan,
where she has been a faculty member since 2014. Her primary research
area is on data-driven decision-making for applications such as
scheduling, inventory management, pricing, and humanitarian logistics.
Dr. Uichanco has collaborated actively with several industry or
government partners such as Target, National Grid, Best Buy, and the
Philippine government. She recently served as a Senior Research
Scientist at Amazon. Dr. Uichanco holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).