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Price promotion and product recommendation are important tactics to gain market share in the e-commerce context. To increase sales and enhance promotion profits, practitioners often recommend non-discounted products in the promotional campaign for a product. However, no analytical model is hitherto available to jointly optimize the price discount for the promoted product and the product portfolio to recommend. This paper provides a probability model to complete the task. The proposed model motivates customers through an attractive price discount for the promoted product, while simultaneously encouraging customers to purchase the non-discounted products through the recommendation system. The numerical studies show that the proposed method attains higher profits than do conventional methods. Finally, we offer managerial insights and provide useful guidelines to help e-tailers to make the most profitable online promotional decisions.

The successful implementation of just-in-time (JIT) purchasing policy in many industries has prompted many companies that still use the economic order quantity (EOQ) purchasing policy to ponder if they should switch to the JIT purchasing policy. This is, however, a difficult decision, especially when price discount has to be considered and despite existing studies that directly compare the costs between the EOQ and JIT purchasing systems. JIT purchasing may not always be successful even though plants that adopted JIT operations have experienced or can take advantage of physical space reduction. Hence, the objectives of this study are to expand on two new concepts that focus on, namely, the annual holding capacity of an inventory facility, and the break-even point between the annual holding capacity of an inventory facility and the EOQ-JIT cost indifference point. The objectives were tested and achieved through a survey and case study conducted in the ready-mixed concrete industry in Singapore.