退款保证对竞争供应链的影响:基于顾客退货行为视角

为研究退款保证对竞争供应链的影响,从顾客退货行为视角构建消费者效用函数,建立竞争制造商与在线零售商之间的博弈模型,分析退款保证对供应链均衡的影响。研究发现:高质量产品的批发价格和零售价格总是更高,但高质量产品制造商可能并不能获得更多利润;退款保证会影响消费者的产品购买选择,对低质量产品需求有利。然而,从利润最大化的角度,在线零售商只有在退货损失足够低时,才会有动机提供退款保证,而退款保证对制造商利润的影响取决于退货产品残值。     

基于退款保证的产品价格、质量水平决策研究

主要研究退款保证策略对产品价格、产品质量水平和零售商利润影响的问题.在垄断零售商模式下,通过对零售商是否提供退款保证策略两种情形的比较,发现垄断零售商提供退款保证始终是有利可图的,提供退款保证帮助零售商提高产品质量水平,提高利润.当市场存在双寡头零售商时,两种类型零售商的退款保证策略分为四种情形-(不提供、不提供),(不提供、提供),(提供、不提供),(提供、提供),分别构建博弈模型,并求出相应情形下的均衡价格,产品质量水平和零售商利润.结果表明:在双寡头零售商竞争模式下,与都不提供退款保证相比,都提供退款保证不仅能帮助低满意度零售商提高产品质量水平,而且能同时帮助高、低满意度零售商提高利润.     

再制造产品销售渠道决策分析

再制造产品的出现,引出了销售渠道决策的新问题。基于博弈理论,分析比较新制造产品和再制造产品五种渠道结构,得到了五种结构下新制造产品和再制造产品均衡产量和零售价格,以及制造商和零售商的均衡利润。研究结果表明,一般情况下,制造商可以凭借零售商之间的竞争提升自身在供应链的权重,使自己获利。然而当制造商通过两个零售商分开销售新制造产品和再制造产品时,制造商并不能因此而增加自己的利润。对于零售商而言,双边垄断使零售商地位提升,而新制造产品或者再制造产品分开销售都会伤及零售商。数值结果表明,零售商之间的竞争缓和了供应链上下游的双重边际效应,增加了供应链的总利润,同时也提高消费者剩余和社会福利。     

考虑消费者后悔行为的零售商预售及退货策略研究

本文考虑消费者预购后悔行为,研究需求和消费者估值均不确定情况下,零售商的三种预售策略:不提供退货、退货不再销售和退货再销售的预售策略;探讨消费者后悔行为对零售商的预售价、订购量、退货额和预售策略选择的影响。研究发现:行动后悔越强,预售价格越低,对零售商的收益越不利;而等待后悔越强,预售价格越高,对零售商的收益越有利,因而零售商可以在现售期保持一定的产品缺货率,增强消费者的等待后悔行为。零售商提供退货服务总是优于不提供退货策略,零售商是否对被退回产品再处理进行二次销售主要依赖于被退回产品的再处理成本大小。     

多渠道供应链中的跨渠道退货服务策略研究

考虑在一个多渠道供应链结构中,零售商同时拥有实体店和网店,制造商开设直营网店且通过双渠道零售商销售产品。考虑消费者的无产品质量退货现象,研究了双渠道零售商为消费者提供跨渠道退货服务的多渠道整合问题。揭示了零售商愿意提供跨渠道退货服务的条件,探讨了跨渠道退货服务策略对市场均衡的影响,并且构建了制造商和零售商之间基于横向合作处理消费者退货的供应链机制,以改善双方的利润。     

多商品流供应链网络应对随机需求扰动研究

研究随机需求下多生产商与多零售商组成、生产和销售多种产品的供应链网络如何应对需求扰动问题。利用Nash均衡理论与变分不等式方法,给出了突发事件发生前随机需求多商品流供应链网络供给市场、零售市场和需求市场的均衡条件和经济解释,建立了刻画各层均衡和供应链网络整体均衡的变分不等式模型。当突发事件导致需求扰动,供需矛盾将引起需求市场价格波动和供应链运作风险的激增。分析生产商允许零售商二次订货和退货下供应链网络均衡的变化,建立了基于二次订货与退货合同可应对需求扰动的随机需求多商品供应链网络均衡变分不等式模型。数值算例验证了模型的合理性,表明二次订货与退货合同可有效应对需求扰动。     

考虑退货策略和贸易信贷的库存运营策略选择研究

在贸易信贷背景下,研究了退货策略对供应链和供应链中各成员库存运营策略选择的影响,把不提供退货策略作为基准,通过建立模型求解表明:无论是否提供退货策略,供应链和供应链中各成员都会选择零售商管理库存的库存运营策略,并且提供退货策略要始终优于不提供退货策略;贷款利率对零售价、订购量和供应链利润无影响,对批发价和供应商的利润有负向影响,对零售商的利润有正向影响;供应商在市场中要通过平衡批发价和贷款利率来使供应链和供应链中各成员都获益.     

基于电商平台的最优销售模式和退款保证策略研究

基于一个制造商和一个平台商组成的供应链,考虑消费者退货行为,运用博弈论建立了不同销售模式和退款保证策略下的六个模型。通过均衡解对比和数值算例分析,给出了制造商的最优销售模式选择和制造商与平台商的退款保证策略。研究发现:制造商同时选择转售和代理模式对其自身、平台商和消费者都最有利;在制造商同时选择两种销售模式的情况下,当转售和代理模式下客户满意度都比较高时,佣金费率对制造商和平台商的退款保证策略选择没有影响,制造商始终倾向于提供退款保证而平台商始终倾向于不提供退款保证。     

考虑无缺陷退货的在线商品信息发布策略

消费者网络购物面临的不确定性往往导致非质量原因的退货。合理发布产品信息,并提供退货保障,是网络零售商促进消费者购买和提高利润的有效策略。基于消费者效用理论和博弈论,构建了产品信息影响消费者购买和退货模型,研究了零售商在垄断和竞争情形下的产品信息发布决策问题,发现垄断性零售商的最优信息发布策略和竞争性零售商在发布产品信息量和信息内容方面的均衡策略均取决于产品价值和退货成本特征,提出了不同市场结构下基于产品特征的在线商品信息发布策略。     

不同博弈框架下多竞争零售商的双渠道供应链定价决策研究

在Bertrand竞争、Stackelberg竞争及集中决策下,研究由单制造商与多竞争零售商组成的双渠道供应链的定价决策问题。运用两阶段优化技术、博弈论及矩阵论,讨论了多竞争零售商与单制造商在价格方面相互竞争的问题,给出不同市场竞争模式及集中决策下供应链成员的博弈均衡解。对比不同博弈框架及集中决策下供应链成员的定价决策,通过数值实验分析了价格敏感度及零售商个数对最优定价决策和最大利润影响,给出一些管理学理论与见解,为双渠道供应链中各成员的管理者制定最优决策提供理论支持。     

The impact of consumer returns policies on consignment contracts with inventory control

We consider a consignment contract with consumer non-defective returns behavior. In our model, an upstream vendor contracts with a downstream retailer. The vendor decides his consignment price charged to the retailer for each unit sold and his refund price for each returned item, and then the retailer sets her retail price for selling the product. The vendor gets paid based on net sold units and salvages unsold units as well as returned items in a secondary market. Under the framework, we study and compare two different consignment arrangements: the retailer/vendor manages consignment inventory (RMCI/VMCI) programs. To study the impact of return policy, we discuss a consignment contract without return policy as a benchmark. We show that whether or not the vendor offers a return policy, it is always beneficial for the channel to delegate the inventory decision to the vendor. We find that the vendor’s return policy depends crucially on the salvage value of returns. If the product has no salvage value, the vendor’s optimal decision is not to offer a return policy; otherwise, the vendor can gain more profit by offering a return policy when the salvage value turns out to be positive.     

Supply chain coordination through integration of innovation effort and advertising support

This study integrates firms’ innovation and advertising decisions in a two-echelon supply chain, where a monopoly manufacturer sells products to ultimate consumers through an autonomous retailer. Considering that both innovation and advertising contribute to the product demand, we first investigate the optimal equilibriums of channel members under two different game structures: the non-cooperative and cooperative. In the non-cooperative structure, the manufacturer controls the innovation effort and wholesale price while the retailer controls the advertising rate and retail pricing. In the cooperative structure, the manufacturer agrees to share part of retailer’s advertising expenditure. We find that both the optimal operation and marketing decisions are sensitive to effects of innovation and advertising on demand as well as the manufacturer’s cost reduction coefficient due to innovation. Further, we find that the manufacturer always prefers cooperation. Meanwhile, only when the firms’ investments significantly contribute to the market mechanism, does the retailer have incentive to implement a cooperative program. In addition, we further propose a new two-way subsidy policy to coordinate channel members’ business functions.     

Marketing-production decisions under independent and integrated channel structure

The topic of channel structure has recently attracted much attention among researchers in the marketing and economics area. However, in a majority of the existing literature the cost considerations are extremely simplified with the major focus being pricing policy. What happens when cost incurring decisions are strongly connected with pricing policies? This is the theme we wish to explore in the present paper. The non-trivial costs considered are production, inventory, and retailer effort rate, i.e. we seek to explore the marketing-production channel. We have used the methodology of differential games. The open-loop Stackelberg solution concept has been used to solve the manufacturer and retailer's problem. The Pareto solution concept has been used to solve the problem of the vertically integrated firm. The production, pricing, and effort rate policies thus derived have been compared to obtain insights into the impact of channel structure on these policies. Also, to examine the relation between channel structure and the retailing operation requiring effort, we derive the Stackelberg and Pareto solutions with and without effort rate as a decision variable. We show that once the production rate becomes positive, it does not become zero again. This implies production smoothing. However, none of the gains of production smoothing are passed on to the retailer. The optimal production rate and the inventory policy are a linear combination of the nominal demand rate, the peak demand factor, the salvage value, and the initial inventory. Also, as opposed to some of the existing literature, the optimal policies need not necessarily be concave in nature. In the scenario where the relating operation does not require effort, the pricing policies of the manufacturer and the retailer, and the production policy of the manufacturer have a synergistic effect. However, in the scenario where the retailing operation does benefit from effort, the retailer's pricing policy need not necessarily be synergistic with other policies. With regard to channel structures, it seems that production smoothing will be done more efficiently in the integrated setup. Also, we show that the price paid by the consumer need not necessarily be lower in the integrated setup. But despite higher prices, the channel profits are higher in the integrated setup. This implies a conflict between the interests of the consumers and the firm. Also, this contradicts the results of some of the earlier papers that have used simple static models.     

Supply chain performance and consumer surplus under alternative structures of channel dominance

Supply chain partnerships exhibit varying degrees of power distribution among the agents. This has implications for pricing and operational decisions in the channel and eventually influences the end customers. To understand how different power schemes affect the supply chain partners’ performance and consumer surplus, we study channel structures with a dominant manufacturer, a dominant retailer, and no single-agent dominance. Under random and price sensitive demand, channel dominance is interpreted in our setting as exerting power to determine the retail and wholesale prices as well as to transfer the inventory risk to the weaker party. We analyze all problems in a game-theory based framework and characterize the equilibrium retail price, wholesale price, and order/production quantity. We show that the manufacturer-dominated channel structure leads to the highest production quantity, the lowest retail price, and the largest expected surplus for an individual buyer; on the other hand, the entire channel profit and the total consumer surplus are highest when the retailer holds the channel dominance. While both the manufacturer and the retailer are better off when they become a power agent individually, channel dominance does not always guarantee higher share of channel profits, as we show under the manufacturer-dominated structure. Further insights are derived analytically and numerically from comparisons of the manufacturer/retailer dominance schemes with the no single-agent dominance structure and integrated channel. We also study extensions to investigate the effect of demand model and risk sharing, and we address industry settings with alternative schemes of holding cost, shortage penalty and salvage value.     

双渠道供应链中的价格决策与服务决策研究

在集中式和分散式决策条件下,应用两阶段优化技术和Stackelberg博弈的理论与方法,对一个制造商与一个零售商组成的双渠道供应链,重点考虑了制造商在网络渠道的服务决策,建立了利润最大化模型,得到了最优的价格策略和服务策略,研究表明,网络渠道的服务水平对制造商和零售商的价格决策有着重要影响,而且消费者对网络直销渠道的偏好对制造商和零售商价格决策和服务决策会产生很大影响．     

Periodicity of pricing and marketing efforts in a distribution channel

Most research about cooperative (coop) advertising programs in channels relies on the assumption that manufacturers and retailers decide of pricing and marketing efforts simultaneously. This paper evaluates this central assumption and investigates the optimal periodicity (sequence of move) of pricing and marketing efforts (ME) decisions for a distribution channel. We develop a game theoretic model that accounts for pricing at each level of the channel, for the manufacturer’s ME mix strategies (a direct ME to consumers and coop advertising program offered to the retailer) and the retailer’s ME as well. We obtain solutions for a bilateral channel under different vertical interaction scenarios; when the channel is led by the manufacturer, the retailer or when channel members decide simultaneously of each of their marketing mix decisions (vertical Nash). We compare the effect of pricing and ME decision periodicity on outputs for each channel member. The main findings suggest that simultaneous decision-making of pricing and ME is optimal only for high enough levels of the manufacturer’s ME effects. For very highly effective marketing efforts, sequential play of pricing and ME allows channel members to implement equilibrium strategies and achieve maximum profits that would not be achieved with simultaneous decision-making. This highlights the importance of relaxing the simultaneous play assumption of pricing and ME in a distribution channel.     

Benefits of partial myopia in a durable product supply chain considering pricing and advertising

Consider a bilateral monopoly supply chain where a manufacturer distributes a durable product through a retailer to end consumers. This paper develops a differential game in which the manufacturer determines the advertising and the wholesale price while the retailer sets the retail price. Channel members are partially myopic when they only consider goodwill dynamics and disregard sales evolution. We derive and compare partially myopic and forward-looking strategies with the following observations: First, under decentralized scenario, partially myopic channel members get higher profits than the forward-looking ones, while the opposite result occurs in centralized scenario. Second, when channel members are partially myopic, the distribution channel can benefit from the strategic decentralization.     

Pricing and effort investment for a newsvendor-type product

We investigate a dominant retailer’s optimal joint strategy of pricing and timing of effort investment and analyze how it influences the decision of the manufacturer, the total supply chain profit, and the consumers’ payoff. We consider two pricing schemes of the retailer, namely, dollar markup and percentage markup, and two effort-investment sequences, namely, ex-ante and ex-post. A combination of four cases is analyzed. Our results show that: (1) under the same effort-decision sequence, a percentage-markup pricing scheme leads to higher expected profit for the retailer and the whole supply chain, but a lower expected profit for the manufacturer and a higher retail price for the consumers; (2) under the same markup-pricing strategy, the dominant retailer always prefers to postpone her effort decision until the manufacturer makes a commitment to wholesale price, since it can result in a Pareto-improvement for all the supply chain members. That is, the retailer’s and manufacturer’s expected profits are higher and the consumers pay a lower retail price; and (3) among the four joint strategies, the dominant retailer always prefers the joint strategy of percentage-markup plus ex-post effort decision. However, the dominated manufacturer always prefers the joint strategy of dollar-markup plus ex-post effort decision, which is also beneficial to the end consumers.     

制造商信息私有条件下的双渠道供应链定价决策

针对由风险规避型制造商拥有的直销渠道和风险规避型零售商拥有的传统零售渠道组成的双渠道供应链模型,首先研究制造商和零售商的风险规避信息为共同知识条件下,直销渠道和传统零售渠道的定价决策。进一步分析制造商风险规避度为私有信息条件下,制造商和零售商的最优定价策略,探讨精炼贝叶斯均衡定价的存在条件。研究表明,信息非对称条件下,零售商即使存在信念的修正,其零售渠道的定价与制造商的定价决策类型始终保持一致,而制造商的最终定价策略选择有多种。在不同参数条件下,该非对称信息动态博弈模型可能存在分离均衡、混同均衡和准分离均衡。     

基于差价补偿策略的斯塔克尔伯格博弈协调优化

以智能产品为研究对象,建立了差价补偿策略下制造商与销售商的博弈模型,分别通过纳什均衡博弈和斯塔克尔伯格博弈协调优化对制造商和销售商的决策行为进行探讨,得到了Nash均衡下制造商与销售商之间交易策略,讨论了斯塔克尔伯格博弈下制造商的最优订购、最优补偿系数和销售商的订购量之间关系,提出了求解在给定补偿系数下斯塔克尔伯格博弈协调优化的近似最优批发价与最优订购量的算法。通过数值实验表明,制造商占优势地位时,差价补偿策略能实现整体供应链的协调优化,提高销售商的订购量以及制造商和销售商的利润,说明差价补偿策略可以有效地改善零供关系。