Rice Business Professor Amit Pazgal found that in certain situations, gray markets can actually help manufacturers and retailers. Photo by Science in HD on Unsplash

A camera store in Taiwan buys Nikon cameras from an electronics shop in the Philippines, where photo equipment is cheaper. Then the store sells them to consumers in Taiwan at a lower price. The camera comes without a warranty and instructions are in Filipino – the buyers in Taiwan are happy to have a real Nikon for a lower cost.

The sellers and customers are operating in the so-called gray market – where genuine products are sold through unauthorized channels. Gray marketers buy goods in markets with lower prices, then ship them to a market with higher prices, where they will likely sell for a profit. Though the products are identical, consumers typically see gray market goods as inferior since they often lack benefits like after-sale services or warranty coverage.

For years, gray markets have posed a significant threat to both manufacturers and retailers, depriving both of customers and profits. It's estimated that around $7 billion to $10 billion in goods enter the U.S. market through gray market channels every year. The IT industry, for one, loses approximately $5 billion a year due to gray market activities.

No specific laws in the U.S. ban this practice outright, however. As a result, in recent years, retailers are increasingly taking advantage of potentially cheaper prices abroad, personally importing or using third parties to buy original goods not meant for direct sale in the United States – and then selling them here for less. Alibaba, China's most extensive online shopping site, offers its hundreds of millions of shoppers a large array of gray market goods to peruse.

Manufacturers usually respond to gray markets with knee-jerk hostility, urging customers to avoid gray market goods and even filing lawsuits against gray market peddlers. Nikon, for example, includes a website section to educate consumers on how to identify gray market products, to shun the gray market.

But is gray market commerce always destructive? Rice Business Professor Amit Pazgal joined then-Rice Business Ph.D. student Xueying Liu (now an assistant professor at Nankai University) to explore scenarios in which gray markets could be good for both manufacturers and retailers. Testing the theory in recent research, Pazgal and Liu found that there are indeed situations in which both manufacturers and retailers can profit thanks to gray markets, while the associated product also improves in quality.

To reach these conclusions, the researchers started by recruiting 118 participants between the ages of 25 and 45 to complete a gray market product survey. They found the majority had no problem buying gray market goods. Only 3 percent of consumers wouldn't consider buying cosmetics from a gray marketer, while 6 to 7 percent wouldn't buy electronics. Despite this, more than 90 percent of participants who were willing to buy required a price discount of 20 to 30 percent, showing the goods were seen as slightly inferior.

The researchers then tested responses to a model of a manufacturer selling a single product to two markets – or countries – that differed in size and in customer willingness to pay for the product. Consumers in one market would pay more, on average, for quality. For example, the Nikon D500 camera is sold for a 7.5 percent premium in Taiwan versus Thailand and a 10 percent price premium in Taiwan versus the Philippines.

Pazgal and Liu found that when the manufacturer sells their product directly to consumers in both markets when there is also a gray market, both the manufacturer's profit and product quality decrease. But when the same manufacturer sells their product indirectly to a retailer in at least one of these markets, both the manufacturer's and the retailer's profits can increase. So can the product's quality.

This occurs for several reasons. First, gray marketers increase total demand and profit for the retailer in the lower-priced market, or in the market where the gray marketer buys their goods. The manufacturer can set a higher wholesale price for the better quality product in a market where consumers pay more, and increase sales in both markets as consumers compare the regular, high-quality product to the gray market one. In fact, by offering a lower-priced, lower quality (that is, gray market) alternative to its own high-quality product, the manufacturer can better segment consumers in the higher-priced market.

Finally, the retailer in the higher-priced market becomes more profitable even though they lose some customers to the gray market. This is because increased product quality and price more than make up for lost sales. Researchers found that the results hold regardless of whether the gray marketer buys from the manufacturer or a retailer.

The bottom line: in certain situations, gray markets can improve profitability for both manufacturers and retailers (and, of course, the gray marketers). Counterintuitive though it is, manufacturers that sell through retailers shouldn't automatically see gray markets as an obstacle to their profits, rushing to demand that governments and courts shut them down. Instead, in some cases, companies could do well to embrace these gray markets, because they lead to overall improved profits.

Manufacturers can use this information to their advantage, Pazgal noted. Nikon, for example, could introduce a higher quality camera to the market, allowing it to set even higher wholesale prices and increase sales in both markets, far exceeding the cost of the higher quality product.

For consumers, meanwhile, gray markets are always beneficial because of lower prices. If companies heed Pazgal's findings, however, customers could also benefit from more innovative and higher quality cameras and other merchandise, as manufacturers hurry to create better products to bump up their profits.

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This article originally ran on Rice Business Wisdom and is based on research from Amit Pazgal, the Friedkin Professor of Management – Marketing at the Jones Graduate School of Business.

Turns out, timing is everything when launching a new tech product, this reacher found for Rice Business Wisdom. rawpixel.com /Pexels

Rice University researcher discovers what makes a tech product stand out in a crowd

Houston Voices

From smart phones to video games to virtual reality toys, new products roll forward as relentlessly as the tides. So what, and how, should you tell consumers about your product to avoid being swept away in a sea of similar wares?

To answer this question, Rice Business professor Amit Pazgal and colleague Yuanfang Lin of Conestoga College dove into the particulars of how companies differentiate their products by informing consumers about a new product's quality.

The rush of new products, they note, is particularly intense in technology, where innovations are constant — which means consumers constantly need information about them. Traditionally, tech companies make the case for their products using advertising, free sample, product trials and splashy product demonstrations. (See your local Apple Store).

But how does a consumer's wish for information interact with their ultimate buying decision?

Timing, Pazgal and Lin found, plays a powerful role in the type of information that best influences consumers. Suppose, for example, Firm 1 offers a new product, say a smartphone with innovative features. This makes Firm 1 a pioneer. For a certain golden period, Firm 1 might hold a monopoly in the market, since there's simply no other smartphone like theirs. This is the moment, the researchers say, to offer consumers information that reveals the product's true quality and uniqueness. Because no similar product is out there, Firm 1 has the power to establish the parameters for judging its invention.

Inevitably, of course, another company (call it Firm 2) will come up with something comparable. Thanks to the heavy lifting in innovation by Firm 1, Firm 2 has the luxury to create a phone of equal or greater quality. And this is when the tide starts to turn. One might assume Firm 2 would just inform consumers of the superior quality of its product. But, surprisingly, Pazgal and Lin found that in most cases Firm 2 will instead focus on educating consumers about their preference for quality — in effect, leaving it up to the buyer to decide which of the two phones they really wants.

However, if another firm emerges with a similar product of lesser quality, its marketing will likely take yet another turn. Instead of trying to claim better quality, late entry companies offering an inferior product typically admit outright that their product isn't as well made as other versions.

That's because such firms calculate that if customers discover this themselves, they'll react badly. By telling the truth and pricing appropriately, a firm can find a calm stretch of water elsewhere in the market, someplace where it's not clashing directly with the earlier, higher quality products.

Whether it's Alexa, a smart TV or a virtual reality game, Pazgal and Lin explain, when a product enters the market for the first time, consumers need to be shown how it works. When a second product in the same line is introduced by a different company, the marketing task changes: it's now more important to show consumers how to identify a quality product, and then let them choose for themselves.

Any time a company launches a device or service into the world, in other words, it needs to trust consumers' ability to learn — and not drown them with too much information. Informed what good quality looks like, Pazgal and Lin conclude, consumers will swim on their own to the item they truly want.

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This article originally appeared on Rice Business Wisdom.

Amit Pazgal is Friedkin Chair in Management and Professor of Marketing and Operations Management at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

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Play it back: How this Houston innovator is championing women in health tech

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 264

With her long-standing career in health care, Ayse McCracken knows women are integral in leading health care. That's why she started Ignite Healthcare Network — to help find, support, and champion female health tech founders.

Originally founded in 2017 as a pitch competition, Ignite has evolved to become an active and integral program for female health tech entrepreneurs. Last month, the organization hosted its annual Fire Pitch Competition, and six finalists walked away with awards. At the event, the founders pitched their health tech solutions across lung health, renal therapy, breastfeeding tech, and more.

Last year, McCracken joined the Houston Innovators Podcast to share her story of starting Ignite and how its evolved since, accelerating around 100 female founders and advancing life-saving health care technology.

"Success to me isn't just getting people an early stage investment," she says on the show. "Success to me is getting companies that actually commercialize, get their products in the market, and that they are actually making an impact on health wellbeing, patients, and so forth."

"Having an impact in the health care industry and finding solutions is important to me," McCracken adds. "The second aspect of that is there are so many women in health care, and yet you don't see them in leadership roles."

Houston urban agricultural nonprofit gears up for opening of new farm in Second Ward

GROWING FOR GOOD

Small Places, a Houston-based urban agricultural nonprofit, is looking forward to putting down roots beyond the fresh vegetables they grow in the East End.

After securing a 40-year land agreement with Harris County, the organization, which provides produce to families facing food insecurity in the Second Ward, is expecting to open their new farm in February 2025. Small Places’ founders hope the 1.5 acres of land named Finca Tres Robles, located at 5715 Canal Street, will be the beginning of Houston’s urban farming movement.

Founded in 2014 by brothers Daniel, Mark, and Thomas Garcia-Prats, Small Places was born out of the latter brother’s desire to work on an organic farm in his hometown of Houston. After farming in Maine, Iowa, and Nicaragua, Thomas had hoped to manage an urban farm but was unable to find a place. He then roped his brothers, who had no agricultural background at the time, into creating one.

“I joke that my journey in agriculture started the day we started out there. We didn’t grow up gardening or farming or anything of the sort,” says Daniel, Small Places’ director of operations. “It was a big learning curve, but how we approached it to our benefit was through our diverse set of backgrounds.”

Small Places began their need-based produce distribution programs through a partnership with nearby pre-school, Ninfa Lorenzo Early Childhood Center, providing food insecure families with fresh produce and later cooking lessons in 2017. When COVID-19 hit Houston in 2020, Daniel says Small Places pivoted towards becoming a redistribution center for their farming contacts who needed to offload produce as restaurants shut down, selling their crops through the organization. Their neighborhood produce program was then born, providing free boxes of produce to nearly 200 families in the East End at the pandemic’s peak.

“We found ourselves in the middle of two communities who were in need, one being people in our community who were losing jobs and were in need of food as well as our farming connections who were losing restaurant accounts,” Daniel explains.

Small Places grows a variety of vegetables at their East End based farm, selling them at a weekly farm stand. (Photo courtesy Small Places)

Small Places currently assists 65 families living predominantly within two miles of their original location and they recently restarted their programming with Ninfa Lorenzo Early Childhood Center, and accepts Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (SNAP) at their farm stand. Daniel says once Finca Tres Robles opens, Small Places plans to bring back cooking classes and educational seminars on healthy eating for which his brother Mark, a former teacher, created the original curriculum. The farm will also have a grocery store stocked with Finca Tres Robles' produce and eventually food staples from local vendors.

“Being social and preparing a meal can be fun, interesting, and delicious. Being able to pull all of that into a program was really important for us,” Daniel explains.

Farming successfully in the middle of Houston for their subsidized programs and produce market requires Small Places’ team to be strategic in their operations. Using his background in engineering and manufacturing, Daniel says they’ve closely monitored trends in which crops perform the best in Houston’s varied, humid climate over the past decade.

They also follow Thomas’s philosophy of allowing nature to work for them, planting crops at times when specific pests are minimal or integrating natural predators into their environment. And lots of composting. Daniel says they accept compostable materials from community members, before burying the raw organic matter in the earth in between their plant beds, allowing it to mature, then later using it to nourish their crops. Daniel says he and his co-founders hope to see more community-focused, sustainable operations like theirs spring up across Houston.

“Small Places is about hopefully more than one farm and really trying to turn urban agriculture and a farm like ours from a novel thing into something that’s just a part of communities and the fabric of Houston for generations to come,” Daniel says.

Houston female-focused health tech accelerator names top companies at annual event

you go girls

A Houston organization that accelerates and supports female founders leading innovative health tech startups has concluded its 2024 program with the announcement of this year's top companies.

Ignite Health, an accelerator founded in 2017 by longtime Houston health care professional Ayse McCracken, named its 2024 winners at its annual Fire Pitch Competition in Houston last month. The companies pitched health tech solutions across lung health, renal therapy, breastfeeding tech, and more.

"This year’s competition was a culmination of passion, innovation, and hard work from the top startups in our 2024 Accelerator Program," reads a LinkedIn post from Ignite. "These trailblazing founders earned their spot on the stage by demonstrating exceptional leadership and the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry with their solutions and devices."

First place winner was Sarah Lee, CEO and co-founder of Relavo, a New York-based company that's making home dialysis more effective, safer, and more affordable. Lee accepted awards from Johnson & Johnson and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Therese Canares, CEO and founder of CurieDx, took second place and won its awards from SWPDC - Southwest National Pediatric Device Innovation Consortium and Wilson Sonsini. CurieDx, based in Baltimore, Maryland, is creating remote diagnostic tools using smartphone technology.

In third place is Andrea Ippolito, CEO and founder of SimpliFed, a company focused on democratizing access to baby feeding and breastfeeding services through virtual care that's covered by insurance. The startup won awards from Texas Children's Hospital and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Three other finalists won other awards, including:

  • Kadambari Beelwar, CEO and co-founder, Henderson, Nevada-based Truss Health, which created an AI-powered sensor fusion platform that's designed to detect early signs of infection, won an award presented by Memorial Hermann Health System and Golden Seeds
  • Mimi Gendreau Kigawa, CEO and co-founder of New York-based Zeph Technologies, an AI-lung care company with technology for clinicians to deliver pulmonary care to patients with chronic respiratory disease, won an award presented by CU Innovations and Houston Methodist
  • Ashley Yesayan, CEO and co-founder, New York-based OneVillage, a software platform meant to support patients and family members through trying health events, won an award presented by CU Innovations

The companies were evaluated by the 2024 judges, which included: Allison Rhines, head of JLABS Houston; Andrew Truscott, global health technology lead at Accenture; Angela Shippy, senior physician executive at Amazon Web Services; Kimberly Muller, executive director of CU Innovations at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; Myra Davis, chief innovation and information officer at Texas Children's Hospital; and Winjie Tang Miao, senior executive vice president and COO of Texas Health Resources.