Defending and improving the ‘slotting fee’: how it can benefit all the stakeholders dealing with a newsvendor product with price and effort-dependent demand

‘Slotting fee’ (hereafter ‘SF’) is an upfront fee a ‘supplier’ is required to pay a retailer in order to have his product sold on the retailer's shelves. It is becoming increasingly common, but also widely reviled. This paper considers a newsvendor product whose expected demand is dependent on retail price and sales effort. The question we pose is: given that the Stackelberg-dominant retailer has to choose a pricing contract with which she transacts with the supplier, how would the supply-chain stakeholders fare when the retailer implements SF instead of another practical pricing contract? We show that, contradicting its negative public image, SF empowers the dominant retailer to specify contract terms that will benefit all the stakeholder-groups. That is, the supplier's and the retailer's profits are higher, the production workers are asked to produce more, and the consumers pay a lower retail price. We also propose a new ‘composite’ contract format that incorporates both the SF and ‘buyback’ features. This composite format empowers the retailer to provide even greater benefits to the supply-chain's stakeholders.

     

Coordinating a decentralized supply chain with customer returns and price-dependent stochastic demand using a buyback policy

We investigate a decentralized supply chain that consists of a manufacturer and a retailer where the retailer simultaneously determines the retail price and order quantity while experiencing customer returns and price dependent stochastic demand. We propose an agreement between the manufacturer and the retailer that includes two buyback prices, one for unsold inventory and a second for customer returns, and show that this type of easy-to-implement agreement can achieve perfect supply chain coordination and be a win-win for both manufacturer and retailer when a complementary profit-sharing agreement is included.     

Multi-period modeling of two-way price commitment under price-dependent demand

This paper examines the use of price-commitment policies in dynamic contracting in multiple-period, finite-time horizons. Two specific forms of price commitment are considered: one on the part of the retailer through a retail-fixed-markup contract and one on the part of the manufacturer through a price-protection contract. Optimal policies for each form of price commitment are analytically derived, as are optimal policies for the traditional price-only and centralized supply chain scenarios that we use as comparisons. We prove that optimal retail price and order size solutions exist in each period under the assumption of non-increasing price-dependent demand. We show that the existence of retailer inventory between periods causes the optimal policies to differ from a static single-period model. Further, we show that a supplier offers a price-protection policy as a signal to the retailer to resolve the gaming that naturally occurs under price-only; this effectively decouples the multi-period dynamic contracting setting into repeated single-period scenarios. However, the resulting behavior can actually inhibit supply chain performance. On the retail commitment side, we find that retail-fixed-markup policies are quite effective in improving supply chain efficiency. We show that such policies can lead to Pareto-improvement over price-only contracts and can even coordinate the supply chain in some situations.     

不同权力结构对制造商双渠道供应链的影响研究

在一个制造商和一个零售商组成的供应链中, 制造商拥有线下传统渠道及线上直销双渠道。首先根据消费者剩余理论, 构建了制造商双渠道需求函数;接着分别构建了两类Stackelberg博弈及Nash博弈三种权力结构下制造商和零售商的利润模型并对模型进行了求解;最后分析了三种不同权力结构对制造商双渠道供应链的影响。研究发现:制造商线上直销渠道价格不受三种博弈权力结构的影响;线下传统渠道零售价格、需求, 线上直销渠道需求及制造商双渠道供应链总利润不受两类Stackelberg博弈权力结构的影响;线下传统渠道零售价格及线上直销渠道需求在Nash博弈权力结构下最小, 而线下传统渠道需求及供应链总利润在Nash博弈权力结构下最大;制造商批发价格、利润及零售商利润对三种博弈权力结构较敏感, 随供应链成员自身博弈权力地位的下降而逐渐降低。     

A comparison of different quantity discount pricing policies in a two-echelon channel with stochastic and asymmetric demand information

In this paper, we study quantity discount pricing policies in a channel of one manufacturer and one retailer. The paper assumes that the channel faces a stochastic price-sensitive demand but the retailer can privately observe the realization of an uncertain demand parameter. The problem is analyzed as a Stackelberg game in which the manufacturer declares quantity discount pricing schemes to the retailer and then the retailer follows by selecting the retail price and associated quantity. Proposed in the paper are four quantity-discount pricing policies: “regular quantity discount”; “fixed percentage discount”; “incremental volume discount” and “fixed marginal-profit-rate discount”. Optimal solutions are derived, and numerical examples are presented to illustrate the efficiency of each discount policy.     

Pricing and two-tier advertising with one manufacturer and one retailer

This paper considers the pricing decisions and two-tier advertising levels between one manufacturer and one retailer where customer demand depends on the retail price and advertisement by a manufacturer and a retailer. We solve a Stackelberg game with the manufacturer as the leader and the retailer as the follower. With price sensitive customer demand and a linear wholesale contract, we obtain the optimal decisions by the manufacturer and the optimal responses by the retailer. Our results show that cost sharing of local advertising does not work well, it is better for the manufacturer to advertise nationally and offer the retailer a lower wholesale price.     

How a dominant retailer might design a purchase contract for a newsvendor-type product with price-sensitive demand

A dominant retailer will purchase a newsvendor-type product from a manufacturer, who incurs a unit manufacturing cost k. The expected retail demand is a function of the unit retail price p. How should the retailer design her purchase contract? For this increasingly prevalent but inadequately studied scenario, we propose plausible adaptations of several contract formats that have been widely studied in the dominant-manufacturer context. For both symmetric-k and asymmetric-k-knowledge situations, we present performance results of these contracts. Our results then reveal that the performance of these contract formats under our scenario differs considerably from what one would surmise from the well-known results published for closely related scenarios. For example, the widely studied buyback and revenue-sharing formats turn out to be largely ineffective when implemented by a dominant retailer. In contrast, the two-part tariff format performs well relative to the theoretically optimal “menu of contracts.” Our results highlight the need to study purchase contract formats designed specifically for dominant-retailer newsvendor-product channels.     

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.     

Buyback contracts with price-dependent demands: Effects of demand uncertainty

We explore buyback contracts in a supplier–retailer supply chain where the retailer faces a price-dependent downward-sloping demand curve subject to uncertainty. Differentiated from the existing literature, this work focuses on analytically examining how the uncertainty level embedded in market demand affects the applicability of buyback contracts in supply chain management. To this end, we seek to characterize the buyback model in terms of only the demand uncertainty level (DUL). With this new research perspective, we have obtained some interesting new findings for buyback. For example, we find that (1) even though the supply chain’s efficiency will change over the DUL with a wholesale price-only contract, it will be maintained constantly at that of the corresponding deterministic demand setting with buyback, regardless of the DUL; (2) in the practice of buyback, the buyback issuer should adjust only the buyback price in reaction to different DULs while leave the wholesale price unchanged as that in the corresponding deterministic demand setting; (3) only in the demand setting with an intermediate level of the uncertainty (which is identified quantitatively in Theorem 5), buyback provision is beneficial simultaneously for the supplier, the retailer, and the supply chain system, while this is not the case in the other demand settings. This work reveals that DUL can be a critical factor affecting the applicability of supply chain contracts.     

Dollar vs. percentage markup pricing schemes under a dominant retailer

We investigate two very common pricing schemes for a Stackelberg-dominant retailer: percentage-markup and dollar-markup. We show that when a dominant retailer switches from dollar to percentage markup, the channel’s “overall pie” and the retailer’s “pie-piece” are both enlarged. In contrast, the manufacturer will be forced to levy a lower wholesale price, thus receiving a smaller pie-piece despite the larger pie. The preceding statements hold regardless of whether the demand is deterministic or stochastic. However, the effects of switching to percentage markup on the retail price and sales volume will depend not only on whether the demand is stochastic, but also on the assumed demand-curve shape and on whether demand stochasticity is “additive” or “multiplicative”. Besides presenting a comprehensive set of answers on the comparative performance of dollar- and percentagemarkups, our results also highlight the often overlooked importance of choosing between: (i) dollar- and percentage-markup; and (ii) the formats of the assumed stochasticity and demand curves.     

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.     

Demand forecast sharing in a dual-channel supply chain

We assess the benefits of sharing demand forecast information in a manufacturer–retailer supply chain, consisting of a traditional retail channel and a direct channel. The demand is a linear function of price with a Gaussian primary demand (i.e., zero-price market potential). Both the manufacturer and the retailer set their price based on their forecast of the primary demand. In this setting, we investigate the value of sharing demand forecasts. We analyze the ‘make-to-order’ scenario, in which prices are set before and production takes place after the primary demand is known, and the ‘make-to-stock’ scenario, in which production takes place and prices are set before the primary demand is known. We also compare the supply chain performance with and without the direct channel under some assumptions (production cost is zero, and each demand function has the same slope of price). We find that the direct channel has a negative impact on the retailer’s performance, and, under some conditions, the manufacturer and the whole supply chain are better off. Our research extends and complements prior research that has investigated only the inventory and replenishment-related benefits of information sharing.     

Dynamic Slotting and Pricing Decisions in a Durable Product Supply Chain

We consider a supply chain in which a manufacturer sells an innovative durable product to an independent retailer over its life cycle. We assume that the product demand follows a Bass-type diffusion process and that it is determined by the market influences, retail price of the product, and shelf space allocated to it. We consider the following retailer profit optimization strategies: (i) the myopic strategy of maximizing the current-period profit and (ii) the far-sighted strategy of maximizing the life-cycle profit. We characterize the optimal dynamic shelf-space allocation and retail pricing policies for the retailer and wholesale pricing policies for the manufacturer. We compute also these policies numerically. Surprisingly, we find that the manufacturer, and sometimes even the retailer, is better off with a myopic retailer strategy in some cases.     

货架展示量与定价模型及供应链协调分析

针对单生产商和单零售商组成的供应链,假定需求依赖于货架展示量与零售价格,分别建立了集中式控制下和分散式控制下的货架展示量与定价决策模型,给出了协调供应链的批发价加货架补贴合同。针对单生产商和n个零售商组成的供应链,假定总需求是n个零售商的总货架展示量和平均零售价格的函数、每个零售商的需求与其货架展示相关的促销努力成正比,分析了相应的集中式与分散式决策,并给出了协调供应链的批发价加货架补贴加转移支付合同。     

政府补贴政策下考虑风险规避的绿色供应链定价决策研究

在政府推行补贴政策背景下,通过建立博弈模型研究了政府补贴、制造商和零售商的风险规避对绿色供应链定价策略、产品绿色度、供应链各方利润及整体利润的影响。研究表明:制造商或零售商单方面的风险规避对对方来说都是有利的,但不同的是,仅制造商风险规避时,产品绿色度、批发价格、零售价格及其自身利润都将下降,供应链整体利润则既存在上升也存在下降的情况,当仅零售商风险规避时,产品绿色度、供应链整体利润都将上升,批发价格、零售价格及其自身利润则既存在上升也存在下降的情况;政府增加补贴会在一定程度上加重制造商的风险规避对其自身利润及产品绿色度的损害作用,却会在一定程度上减弱零售商的风险规避对其自身利润的损害作用,并增强零售商的风险规避对产品绿色度的提升作用。     

The impact of sharing customer returns information in a supply chain with and without a buyback policy

In this paper, we examine a single period problem in a supply chain in which a Stackelberg manufacturer supplies a product to a retailer who faces customer returns and demand uncertainty. We show that the manufacturer incurs a significant profit loss with and without a buyback policy if it fails to account for customer returns in the wholesale price decision. Under the assumption that the retailer is better informed than the manufacturer on customer returns information, we show that without a buyback policy, the retailer prefers not to share if the manufacturer overestimates while it prefers to share customer returns information if the manufacturer underestimates this information. If the manufacturer offers a buyback policy, we have the opposite results. We also discuss incentives to share the customer returns information and some of the issues that are raised in sharing this information.     

Consumer returns reduction and information revelation mechanism for a supply chain

In this paper, we develop two revelation mechanism models of a supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer under asymmetric information, where the retailer provides store assistance (SA) to reduce consumer returns rate and increase demand. Under full information, we find that a higher returns rate or returns handling cost increases the SA level if the market scale is sufficiently high. In the demand information asymmetry model, we find that: (i) the low-type retailer (facing a low demand) has no incentive to distort demand information while the high-type retailer may report wrong information; (ii) the manufacturer would like to design a menu of wholesale price-order quantity contract to induce truthful demand information and the manufacturer pays an information rent to the high-type retailer if the returns rate or returns handling cost for the retailer is sufficiently low; (iii) asymmetry of information does not change the monotonicity of the unit wholesale price in the retailer’s type, and information asymmetry decreases the retail price but increases the SA level. Unlike the demand information asymmetry model, a higher retailer’s returns handling cost expands the effects of information asymmetry on the retail price and the SA level, and using revelation mechanism decreases the channel profit if the retailer’s returns handling cost is sufficiently high under the returns rate information asymmetry model.     

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.     

Contracting with asymmetric demand information in supply chains

We solve a buyback contract design problem for a supplier who is working with a retailer who possesses private information about the demand distribution. We model the retailer’s private information as a space of either discrete or continuous demand states so that only the retailer knows its demand state and the demand for the product is stochastically increasing in the state. We focus on contracts that are viable in practice, where the buyback price being strictly less than the wholesale price, which is itself strictly less than the retail price. We derive the optimal (for the supplier) buyback contract that allows for arbitrary allocation of profits to the retailer (subject to the retailer’s reservation profit requirements) and show that in the limit this contract leads to the first-best solution with the supplier keeping the entire channel’s profit (after the retailer’s reservation profit).     

Coordinating a three-echelon supply chain under price and quality dependent demand with sub-supply chain and RFM strategies

The paper considers a three-echelon supply chain which consists of one supplier, one manufacturer and one retailer for trading a single product. The market demand at the retailer is influenced by the retail price and the quality of the product. The quality of the finished product at the manufacturer depends on the supplier’s raw material quality. We analyze the model for both deterministic and stochastic demand patterns. We first study the centralized and decentralized systems, and then the decentralized system with a sub-supply chain coordination strategy (where the manufacturer chooses to merge with either the supplier or the retailer and then acts as a single entity) and the two-level retail fixed mark-up (RFM) strategy. In the case of the two-level RFM strategy, the manufacturer and the retailer use fixed mark ups over the supplier’s wholesale price. The proposed models are demonstrated through numerical examples. It is observed from the numerical study that the two-level RFM strategy is superior to the sub-supply chain coordination strategy. Further, the two-level RFM strategy in the stochastic demand scenario is not as effective as in the deterministic demand scenario.