不同渠道偏好和运营成本下双渠道闭环供应链定价决策研究

本文以消费者对传统零售渠道和网络直销渠道的不同偏好和不同渠道运营成本为基础,研究零售商销售新产品并回收废旧产品、制造商开辟网络直销渠道的双渠道闭环供应链中成员的定价决策问题。建立三种不同市场权力结构下的定价博弈模型,用逆向归纳法得到模型的最优解,并用解析分析和数值分析得到消费者的渠道偏好程度和渠道运营成本对定价决策和利润的影响。研究表明:最优直销价格随网络直销渠道偏好程度的增加而上升,最优零售价格随网络直销渠道偏好程度的增加而下降;网络直销渠道运营成本增加对零售商有利但不利于制造商;传统渠道运营成本的增加对所有成员都不利。     

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 advertising and pricing in a manufacturer–retailer channel

Cooperative advertising is a practice that a manufacturer pays retailers a portion of the local advertising cost in order to induce sales. Cooperative advertising plays a significant role in marketing programs of channel members. Nevertheless, most studies to date on cooperative advertising have assumed that the market demand is only influenced by advertising expenditures but not by retail price. This paper addresses channel coordination by seeking optimal cooperative advertising strategies and equilibrium pricing in a two-member distribution channel. We establish and compare two models: a non-cooperative, leader–follower game and a cooperative game. We develop propositions and insights from the comparison of these models. The cooperative model achieves better coordination by generating higher channel-wide profits than the non-cooperative model with these features: (a) the retailer price is lower to consumers; and (b) the advertising efforts are higher for all channel members. We identify the feasible solutions to a bargaining problem where the channel members can determine how to divide the extra profits.     

Dynamic pricing and strategic retailers in the energy sector: A multi-leader-follower approach

We consider strategic retail pricing in markets, where retail companies buy commodities at fluctuating wholesale prices and resell them to final consumers by applying dynamic retail tariffs. This is of especially large relevance in the context of energy markets where substantial wholesale price fluctuations are observed. Policy makers currently foster the introduction of such dynamic tariff schemes. From a modelling point of view, we propose a multi-leader-follower problem to investigate the implications of strategic retail pricing and we compare the impacts of implementing dynamic tariffs on retailers and final consumers. Our analysis tackles different aspects: first, we formulate the model and provide theoretical results. Second, we develop algorithms, which solve the multi-leader-follower problem and allow us to characterize the resulting market equilibria. Third, we calibrate and solve our framework based on data of the German retail electricity market for the years 2020 and 2021. This allows us to quantitatively assess the impact of introducing real time prices on retailers’ profits and customers’ benefits. As our results show, dynamic real-time pricing on the one hand typically increases market efficiency, which confirms previous results obtained without the explicit consideration of strategic behavior. On the other hand, however, as a novel aspect, dynamic real-time pricing turns out to significantly reduce equilibrium profits in case of strategic firms. This effect is especially large in environments with strongly fluctuating wholesale prices.     

Pricing policies for substitutable products in a supply chain with Internet and traditional channels

This study considers pricing policies in a supply chain with one manufacturer, who sells a product to an independent retailer and directly to consumers through an Internet channel. In addition to the manufacturer’s product, the retailer sells a substitute product produced by another manufacturer. Given the wholesale prices of the two substitute products, the manufacturer decides the retail price of the Internet channel, and the retailer decides the retail prices of the two substitute products. Both the manufacturer and the retailer choose their own decision variables to maximize their respective profits. This work formulates the price competition, using the settings of Nash and Stackelberg games, and derives the corresponding existence and uniqueness conditions for equilibrium solutions. A sensitivity analysis of an equilibrium solution is then conducted for the model parameters, and the profits are compared for two game settings. The findings show that improving brand loyalty is profitable for both of the manufacturer and retailer, and that an increased service value may alleviate the threat of the Internet channel for the retailer and increase the manufacturer’s profit. The study also derives some conditions under which the manufacturer and the retailer mutually prefer the Stackelberg game. Based on these results, this study proposes an appropriate cooperation strategy for the manufacturer and retailer.     

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.     

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.     

基于不同融资方式的双渠道供应链定价决策

针对由一个制造商和一个有资金约束零售商组成的双渠道供应链系统,利用Stackelberg博弈模型,研究零售商分别选择银行贷款和延迟支付解决资金约束问题时,不同定价方案中制造商和零售商的最优决策,分析零售渠道市场份额以及融资利率对决策结果的影响。研究表明:零售商的资金不足不会改变各参与方最优决策随零售渠道市场份额的变化趋势。在双渠道不统一定价方案下,若选择银行贷款,只有零售渠道市场份额较小且利率较高时,直销价格随利率的增加而增加;若申请延迟支付,零售价格和直销价格不受利率影响。在双渠道统一定价方案下,销售价格只有在零售渠道市场份额较低时随银行贷款利率的增加而增加,与延迟支付利率无关。     

Optimal ordering and pricing strategies in the presence of a B2B spot market

In the current paper, we examine the effect of a B2B spot market on the strategic behavior and the performance of a reseller who continues to use the traditional channel while participating in a B2B spot market. We analyze the case in which a risk-neutral reseller faces an additive or multiplicative demand function and identify sufficient conditions under which the optimal order quantity and retail price exist and are unique. We then analytically examine the case in which a risk-averse reseller participates in a fully liquid spot market. We also study numerically how varying liquidity, spot price volatility, demand variability, and correlation coefficient affect a firm’s strategies and performance. We find that demand variability significantly affects both pricing and ordering strategies, whereas the spot price volatility has less influence on pricing decisions. Our results also show that for a risk-averse reseller to charge a lower retail price when the spot market liquidity increases is desirable. We further show that a B2B spot market cannot always improve a reseller’s utility. These findings shed light on how resellers can adjust their procurement and pricing strategies to align with the new business environment created by the emergence of B2B spot markets, as well as have obvious implications for the development of a B2B spot market.     

Pricing policies for complementary products in a dual-channel supply chain

This paper investigates the pricing problem of complementary products in a supply chain with two manufacturers and one retailer, one of the two manufacturers uses dual channels including an online channel and a traditional retail channel to sell its product. We formulate four pricing game models through considering different market power structures of channel members, and derive the corresponding optimal pricing strategies. Based on the theoretical and numerical analysis, we study the effects of consumer channel loyalty, the level of complementarity, and the market power structures on the pricing strategies and the maximal profits of two complementary products. Some interesting and valuable managerial insights are obtained.     

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.     

The impact of power structure on the retail service supply chain with an O2O mixed channel

While the Internet has provided a new means for retailers to reach consumers, it has fundamentally changed the dynamic of competition in the retail service supply chain. The mix of offline and online channels adds a new dimension of competition, and one central issue of this competition is the pricing strategy between the two channels. How to set prices for both online and offline channels? What is the impact of the supply chain power structure on pricing decisions and the performance? This research aims to address these questions by focusing on a retail service supply chain with an online-to-offline (O2O) mixed dual-channel. From the Supplier-Stackelberg, Retailer-Stackelberg, and Nash game theoretical perspectives, we obtain the optimal prices and maximum profits for both the retailer and supplier under different power structures. The analysis result provides important managerial implications, which will be beneficial to retailers to develop proper pricing strategies.     

基于时间和渠道敏感顾客选择偏好的双渠道定价策略

随着网络技术的发展,带动了网络销售模式的发展。网络渠道为顾客带来了便利性,也为制造商提供了扩大市场占有率和提高利润的机会,如何合理定价关系到企业的长久发展。在考虑顾客对网络渠道交付时间和网络渠道接受敏感的基础上,研究了制造商的单渠道和双渠道定价策略问题。研究结果表明,两种销售模式下零售渠道的定价相同,而网络渠道的定价低于零售渠道的定价。制造商可以通过引入网络渠道提高市场占有率、降低顾客时间敏感性和提高网络渠道接受程度,从而提高利润。最后,通过数值实验分析了交付时间敏感性和网络渠道接受程度对企业决策的影响,并对比分析了单渠道和双渠道的最优决策。     

Some properties of buyback and other related schemes in a newsvendor-product supply chain with price-sensitive demand

A manufacturer wholesaling to a retailer a ‘newsvendor-type’ product such as a seasonal/fashion good or a perishable food item is considered here. It is known that such a manufacturer/retailer channel has difficulties in fully realizing the market's profit potential. We study a theoretical construct of such a channel and present practically useful results for a manufacturer trying to design more profitable pricing schemes. Specifically, we consider a ‘dominant’ manufacturer supplying a newsvendor-type product to a retailer. The retail market volume varies with the unit retail price according to a stochastic demand curve. We study the design and performance of ‘price-only’, ‘buyback’ and ‘manufacturer-imposed retail price’ schemes. All these schemes have been considered in earlier works. The first part of this paper studies some important but previously overlooked aspects of price-only and buyback schemes. We show that the performance of these schemes is strongly and somewhat counter-intuitively affected by the specific form of demand curve and of demand randomization. Thus, we identify hitherto neglected factors that must be carefully considered when designing pricing schemes for actual implementation. The second part of this paper demonstrates the practicality and merit of using buyback in conjunction with a manufacturer-imposed retail price—an arrangement overlooked in the literature because it is widely mistaken as illegal. Overall, the paper shows how a manufacturer can better realize the market's potential by: (i) modifying slightly the well-known buyback arrangement; and (ii) carefully modelling certain hitherto neglected aspects of the price/demand relationship—a conclusion quite contrary to what one might surmise from the current theoretical literature.     

基于电商平台的混合销售渠道对供应链决策的影响研究

考虑到电商平台对消费者强大的吸引力,本文建立了由供应商和平台商构成的基于电商平台混合销售的供应链模型。混合销售渠道包含直销和分销,其中平台商拥有电商平台,供应商通过电商平台进行直销,平台商分享一定的收益;而分销是指平台商从供应商处批发产品进行销售。分别建立了集中式和分散式决策模型,研究发现:随着消费者对分销渠道接受程度的提高,两种情形下直销渠道的零售价不变,分销渠道的零售价提高;分散式情形下的批发价、供应商和平台商的利润均提高;随着供应商分享收益比例的提高,两种渠道的零售价都降低,但批发价提高,供应商的利润提高,而平台商的利润下降,但供应链的总利润提高;研究得到了保证博弈双方都能从直销渠道中获利的收益分享比例范围。     

Retail price markup commitment in decentralized supply chains

We investigate the operational decisions and resulting profits for a supply chain facing price-dependent demand under a policy where there is an ex-ante commitment made on the retail price markup. We obtain closed-form solutions for this policy under the assumption of a multiplicative demand function and we analytically compare its performance with that of a traditional price-only policy. We compare these results to results obtained when demand follows a linear additive form. These formulations are shown to be qualitatively different as the manufacturer’s wholesale pricing decision is independent of the retail price markup commitment in the multiplicative case, but not when demand is linear additive. We demonstrate that the ex-ante commitment can lead to Pareto-improving solutions under linear additive demand, but not under the multiplicative demand function. We also consider the effect of pricing power in the supply chain by varying who determines the retail price markup.     

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.     

Price and lead time decisions in dual-channel supply chains

Manufacturers today are increasingly adopting a dual channel to sell their products, i.e., the traditional retail channel and an online direct channel. Empirical studies have shown that service quality (we focus on the delivery lead time of the direct channel) even goes beyond product price as one of the major factors influencing consumer acceptance of the direct channel. Delivery lead time has significant effects on demand, profit, and pricing strategy. However, there is scant literature addressing the decision on the promised delivery lead time of a direct channel and its impact on the manufacturer’s and retailer’s pricing decisions. To fill this gap, we examine the optimal decisions of delivery lead time and prices in a centralized and a decentralized dual-channel supply chain using the two-stage optimization technique and Stackelberg game, and analyze the impacts of delivery lead time and customer acceptance of a direct channel on the manufacturer’s and retailer’s pricing behaviours. We analytically show that delivery lead time strongly influences the manufacturer’s and the retailer’s pricing strategies and profits. Our numerical studies reveal that the difference between the demand transfer ratios in the two channels with respect to delivery lead time and direct sale price, customer acceptance of the direct channel, and product type have great effects on the lead time and pricing decisions.     

线上零售商全渠道门店布局密度策略研究

全渠道零售通过整合线上线下发挥协同效应,为零售商和消费者带来价值。但实施全渠道需要更多的成本投入,而合适的线下门店布局是成功的关键。本文基于消费者效用和优化理论,通过零售商和消费者的利益平衡分析,探讨零售商实施全渠道策略下的定价决策、最优门店密度以及相关的全渠道实施的条件。结果表明:全渠道模式的定价与线下不便成本等因素有显著关系;合适的线下门店密度是BOPS策略成功的关键,而最优的密度与与全渠道运营成本系数以及线下门店距离成本难度系数有关,BOPS门店密度大于BOPS+SFS;全渠道策略并不一定有利可图,当线下距离成本效应较低时,BOPS模式优于单一线上销售模式;而BOPS实施成本强度较大或线下距离难度效应较高时,BOPS+SFS则更为可行。     

Pricing under quality of service uncertainty: Market segmentation via statistical QoS guarantees

This article examines how performance-contingent pricing schemes with long-term statistical performance guarantees can be applied to many IT services. We study two forms of performance-contingent pricing, with rebate proportional to failure rate and fixed rebate for below-threshold performance. We show that threshold-performance contingency pricing can increase both profits and fairness (customers who receive higher benefits pay higher effective price) relative to standard pricing. But an even better solution is to offer a menu of performance guarantees: this can increase the firm’s profit and segment the market. Only service providers whose performance level is sufficiently better than the industry standard can benefit from this pricing mechanism.