Joseph Pancras


Marketing Students Played a Pivotal Role in Creating a Safer UConn

UConn Today – Capt. Justin Gilbert believed the new LiveSafe app offered by the UConn Police Department could be a potential lifesaver for students—if only they knew about it.

But after a semester of availability, the app had only 400 active users.

“We weren’t getting much traction,’’ Gilbert says. “And that was really frustrating because this app has really great safety features.’’

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Winds of Change: Customer Demands, Improving Technology are Creating a New World for Retailers


In Philip Dick’s “A Minority Report,” Tom Cruise walks through a mall where his character’s name is called out by a screen and he is addressed for an ultra-targeted Guinness ad.Continue Reading


A Message from the Associate Dean of Research

Fall 2017 Research eNewsletter

Hello to friends and colleagues across the country and around the world!

The beginning of a new academic year is filled with energy and excitement, both for our students and our faculty. This year that momentum is augmented by a team of new faculty members who bring both extensive research accomplishments and a love of teaching to UConn. Continue Reading


UConn Hosts CIBER Case Challenge

CIBER Case Challenge participants gather around the Husky statue on the UConn Storrs campus for a quick photo. (Arminda Kamphausen/UConn School of Business)

Unique Competition Requires Strong Knowledge; Fosters Quick Team Bonding, Personal Growth

The UConn Center for International Business and Education Research (CIBER) held its 14th Annual Case Challenge in October and the event included business case brainstorming, forging new friendships and a day trip to Boston. Continue Reading


If You Slash the Price, They Will Come!

Joseph Pancras, associate professor of marketing, used data on customer traffic, sales per transaction, and profit margin for a total of almost 14,000 transactions over a period of 49 weeks. (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)
Joseph Pancras, associate professor of marketing, used data on customer traffic, sales per transaction, and profit margin for a total of almost 14,000 transactions over a period of 49 weeks. (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)

Professor Joseph Pancras Identifies Best Sale Items to Lure Customers Away From Other Grocery Stores

If you want to increase grocery store sales, offer a discount on beer. And then place a tempting display of salty snacks right next to it—at full price.

That’s some of the well-researched advice that marketing professor Joseph Pancras and his colleagues offer grocery store executives in a newly published article in the Journal of Retailing. Continue Reading


Do Deep Promotional Discounts Work? New Study Sheds Light on Strategy

University of Arkansas – Many retailers employ discounts to attract customers, but it can be difficult for businesses to know what effect these discounts have on overall store performance, and few studies have analyzed store-level data to know for sure whether this strategy works.

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On the Brink: Predicting Business Failure with Mobile Location-based Checkins.

Decision Support Systems, 2015.

Joseph Pancras (Marketing). Co-authors: Ram Gopal (OPIM), Ramesh Shankar (OPIM), Lei Wang (Penn State University)

Consumers are increasingly using mobile services for engaging with firms in the offline world both directly through purchases and loyalty points redemptions, and indirectly through mobile gamification portals related to the retail outlet. One major such portal is Foursquare, the location-based service provider, which has been gaining popularity in the last few years. Continue Reading


Managing Customer Acquisition Risk Using Co-operative Databases.

Journal of Interactive Marketing, Volume 29, February 2015, Pages 39-56.

Authors: Hongju Liu and Joseph Pancras (Marketing). Co-author: Malcolm Houtz (Alliant Inc)

Firms typically have detailed information only about their own customers. In order to gain a broader view of customers across firms, several firms may pool their data together and engage an intermediary called a co-operative database firm to manage and analyze the pooled data to provide better targeting solutions for the firms. In this paper Professors Liu and Pancras study these interesting intermediaries by developing a framework for firms to manage customer acquisition risk using co-operative databases.Continue Reading