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David R. Bell

Marketing Guru & E-Commerce Expert
Author and Wharton Professor

David is the Xinmei Zhang and Yongge Dai Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in consumer shopping behavior. His current research explains how we use the Internet to search and shop, and why this depends to a large extent on where we live, and on our physical world circumstances. David’s research on traditional retailing explains unplanned purchasing and impulse buying, how consumers select stores, why shoppers form reference points for price and promotion activities, and the effect of structural factors (e.g., dwelling size) on consumer shopping strategies.

David is an award-winning teacher and developed Wharton’s first course on Digital Marketing and Electronic Commerce and teaches it at both the Wharton | Philadelphia and Wharton | San Francisco campuses. He is the Academic Director for Wharton’s Advanced Management Program and along with Wharton colleagues Barbara Kahn and Pete Fader teaches the course An Introduction to Marketing via Coursera.org to over 100,000 students worldwide. With Barbara Kahn, he co-hosts a radio show on Retailing Issues on Sirius XM.

David also serves as an expert witness in intellectual property matters pertaining to choice behavior and market demand. Some recent representative cases include Sky Technologies LLP v. SAP, Individual Network LLC v. Apple Inc., and Two-Way Media LLC v. America Online, Inc. (on behalf of the plaintiff; retained by Susman Godfrey) and Power Management Solutions LLC v. Intel Corporation (on behalf of the defendant; retained by WilmerHale).

David holds a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, an MS in Statistics also from Stanford University, an MA (Honorary) from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.Com (1st Class Honors) and B.Com from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Follow David @davidbnz

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Main Day Two : Innovate, Transform Or Disrupt – Change The Retail Game

Saturday, July 2nd, 2016

11:35 Keynote Guest Speaker: Location Is (Still) Everything: The Surprising Influence Of The Real World On How We Search, Shop, And Sell In The Virtual One

Conventional wisdom holds that the Internet makes the world flat and reduces friction by erasing the impact of the physical world on our buying habits. But Wharton professor and marketing expert David R. Bell argues that the way we use the Internet is still largely shaped by the physical world that we inhabit. Anyone can go online and buy a pair of jeans—but the likelihood that we would do so depends to a significant degree on where we live. The presence of stores nearby, trendy and friendly neighbors, and local sales taxes, among other factors, play a critical role in our decision-making process when it comes to buying online. So too, our willingness to search for and consume information depends on where we live and who we live next to.

Bell offers a fascinating, in-depth look at online commerce and retailing through his years of research and investing and advising experience. His unique GRAVITY framework is a powerful and practical tool that explains how the real and virtual worlds connect and what Internet sellers must consider in order to succeed. At its core, Location Is (Still) Everything is a book about fundamental human behaviors and location-based conditions, and the role that they play in determining how the Internet is used in our daily lives. It will give entrepreneurs, managers, students, and investors the key to understanding how and why we use the Internet to search, shop and sell.