HKUST Li & Fung Supply Chain Institute - Buy Now Pay Later: The Hidden Effects of Consumer Liquidity on Retail Prices and Inventories
Supporting the below United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:支持以下聯合國可持續發展目標：支持以下联合国可持续发展目标：
In this seminar, we will examine how consumer liquidity—a critical market friction—affects a retailer’s pricing and inventory management decisions. Motivated by the rapid adoption of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) contracts, we examine how consumer liquidity affects a retailer’s pricing and inventory management decisions. By analyzing a setting that involves a retailer, consumers, and a FinTech firm, we characterize the long-term impacts of BNPL contracts on the retailer’s profit, product’s price, product’s availability, and consumer surplus. Finally, we will analyze a key insight that retailers which accept BNPL financing always raise the equilibrium price, and discuss why this financing may not prove profitable for all retail products and markets.
Panagiotis (Panos) Kouvelis is the Emerson Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain, Operations, and Technology at the Olin Business School. He also serves as Director of the Boeing Center for Supply Chain Innovation — a supply chain, process excellence, business model innovation, and technology management research center at Washington University in St. Louis.
Ranked a top 3 operations management researcher in terms of research productivity, quality and citations, Kouvelis is one of the most highly cited operations and supply chain management scholars. He has authored or co-authored more than 140 publications in academic journals, which have been cited over 17,000 times. He has also published 11 books and has served in top editorial positions for all the major journals in his field. His outstanding contributions to the field have been recognized with Fellow of POMS Award in 2016, the Distinguished MSOM Fellow Award in 2022, and the INFORMS Fellow Award in 2025.
Kouvelis served from 2009-2013 as the senior associate dean and director of executive programs at the Olin Business School, and has received numerous teaching awards, including the EMBA Reid Teaching Award in 2003, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2023. Kouvelis earned his doctorate in industrial engineering and engineering management from Stanford University. He earned his master’s degrees in business administration and industrial and systems engineering from the University of Southern California. He also holds a diploma in mechanical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens.
You are welcome to participate via Zoom if you are unable to join us in person.