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。     

随机产出下考虑小微供应商成本利润率的供应链决策研究

小微型供应商由于产能、资金等限制,其目标可能是实现成本利润率最优,从而提高企业生存能力。基于该观察,区别于多数文献采用利润最优决策准则,本文研究由小微供应商和零售商组成的单周期供应链决策问题。小微供应商面临产出随机风险,以成本利润率最大为目标进行产能决策,零售商以利润最大为目标确定最优订购量。研究发现小微供应商的成本利润率受到自身成本偏重系数以及零售商盈利能力的共同影响,将出现亏损、合理盈利、超额盈利三种情况。并且,零售商采取不同订货策略也会对小微供应商盈利情况产生差异影响。保守(积极)订货策略下,零售商是否盈利取决于自身单位净利润能否弥补单位缺货损失(自身可盈利空间)。本文研究融合现实普遍存在的产出随机问题,为小微供应商和其他供应链成员的产能/订购决策问题提供有益的管理启示。     

需求和汇率风险下的全球供应链汇率风险对冲策略

在下游零售商同时面临市场需求风险和汇率风险的背景下,研究了汇率风险对冲(外汇期货对冲)策略在全球供应链运作及风险管理中的作用。在无/有对冲策略两种情形下分别构建了上游制造商和下游零售商的动态博弈模型,并求解了均衡结果。两种情形下的均衡结果显示,汇率风险对冲策略可以提高供应链系统订货量、增加零售商收益的期望值和确定性等价量、增加供应链系统的总收益。进一步讨论了有对冲策略的情形下,两类外生风险对供应链均衡决策变量和盈利性的影响方式。结果表明,汇率风险对冲策略对汇率风险起到了有效的隔离作用,避免了供应链下游的汇率风险向上游企业传递,并能实现供应链收益与风险的权衡。     

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。     

Analysis and design of returns policies from a supplier's perspective

This paper considers the problem of designing a returns policy in a supply chain from a supplier's perspective. The supply chain considered here is assumed to have one supplier and one retailer who serves a random demand of a product with a short life cycle. The retailer can return all the unsold products to the supplier with a partial refund. We found that if the retailer behaviour is rational, that is, ordering the optimal quantity to maximize its expected profit, then both retailer and supplier could benefit from the returns policy. Furthermore, we established that the optimal buyback price is independent of the mean of the random demand, but the variance of the demand has a significant impact on setting the optimal buyback price. The higher the variance the higher the optimal buyback price and the larger the profit gain of both parties. Numerical studies are employed to help understand the benefits of returns policies for the supplier, the retailer, and the whole supply chain.     

A two-period game of a closed-loop supply chain

We consider a two-period closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) game where a remanufacturer appropriates of the returns’ residual value and decides whether to exclusively manage the end-of-use product collection or to outsource it to either a retailer or a third-service provider (3P). We determine that the manufacturer outsources the product collection only when an outsourcee performs environmentally and operationally better. On the outsourcees side there is always an economic convenience in managing the product returns process exclusively, independently of returns rewards and operational performance. When outsourcing is convenient, a manufacturer always chooses a retailer if the outsourcees show equal performance. Overall, the manufacturer is more sensitive to environmental performance than to operational perfomance. Finally, there exists only a small region inside which outsouring the collection process contributes to the triple bottom line.     

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.     

An integrated product returns model with logistics and marketing coordination

We develop an integrated approach for analyzing logistics and marketing decisions within the context of designing an optimal returns system for a retailer servicing two distinct market segments. At the operational level, we show that the optimal refund price is not unique. Moreover, it is such that if both market segments return a purchased product, then neither segment will receive a full money-back refund; and it is such that if one or both segments do not return a purchased product, then a refund premium over the purchase price is possible, but the refund premium will not be enough to offset a customer's total net cost of purchase and return. We also show that any improvement to the returns system that results in increased logistical efficiency or marketing effectiveness will be accompanied by an increase in the selling price of the product. At the strategic level, we show that if the retailer does not coordinate its logistics and marketing efforts to improve the overall returns system, then it will tend to over-invest in one of the functions and under-invest in the other. Finally, we illustrate how our model can be generalized to the case in which a customer's ex post valuation of the product falls along a continuum.     

Modeling and analysis of the multiperiod effects of social relationship on supply chain networks

In this paper, we analyze the effects of levels of social relationship on a multiperiod supply chain network with multiple decision-makers (suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers) associated at different tiers. The model incorporates the individual attitudes towards disruption and opportunism risks and allows us to investigate the interplay of the heterogeneous decision-makers and to compute the resultant network equilibrium pattern of production, transactions, prices, and levels of social relationship over the multiperiod planning horizon. In our analysis, we focus on the following questions: (1) how do the evolving relationships affect the profitability and risks of supply chain firms as well as the prices and demands of the product in the market? (2) how do the relationships with the upstream supply chain firms affect the relationships with the downstream firms, and how these relationships influence the profitability and risks of the supply chain firms? (3) how do the supply disruption risks interact with the opportunism risks through supply chain relationships, and how these risks influence the profitability of the firms? The results show that high levels of relationship can lead to lower supply chain overall cost, lower risk, lower prices, higher product transaction and therefore higher profit.     

Make-or-buy service capacity decision in a supply chain providing after-sales service

We consider a supply chain comprising a manufacturer and a retailer. The manufacturer supplies a product to the retailer, while the retailer sells the product bundled with after-sales service to consumers in a fully competitive market. The sales volume is affected by the retailer’s service-level commitment. The retailer can build service capacity in-house at a deterministic price before service demand is realized, or buy the service from an outsourcing market at an uncertain price after service demand realization. We find that the outsourcing market encourages the retailer to make a higher level of service commitment, while prompting the manufacturer to reduce the wholesale price, resulting in more demand realization. We analyze how the expected cost of the service in the outsourcing market and the retailer’s risk attitude affect the decisions of both parties. We derive the conditions under which the retailer is willing to build service capacity in-house and under which it will buy the service from the outsourcing market. Moreover, we find that the manufacturer’s sharing with the retailer the cost to build service capacity improves the profits of both parties.     

双渠道模式下制造商线上定制策略研究

本文针对制造商在传统零售渠道和线上网络渠道同时销售标准产品的情况下,是否应该开放线上定制策略的相关问题进行分析。首先通过圆形市场模型完成市场划分;其次,在制造商不开放线上定制策略和开放线上定制策略两种情况下分别构建制造商和零售商利润最大化模型,得到了两种情况下的市场均衡结果。通过分析和比较两种情况下制造商和零售商的最优决策结果发现,当标准产品的边际生产成本较大且开放线上定制策略的成本较小时,制造商应该开放线上定制策略;制造商开放线上定制策略后,会使标准产品的批发价格和零售价格增加,并削弱零售商的利润;定制产品的生产成本越高,制造商开放定制产品的动机越小;消费者对标准产品的适应成本越高,制造商开放定制产品的动机越大。     

Mean–variance analysis of a single supplier and retailer supply chain under a returns policy

In the literature, most of the supply chain coordinating policies target at improving the supply chain’s efficiency in terms of expected cost reduction or expected profit improvement. However, optimizing the expected performance alone cannot guarantee that the realized performance measure will fall within a small neighborhood of its expected value when the corresponding variance is high. Moreover, it ignores the risk aversion of supply chain members which may affect the achievability of channel coordination. As a result, we carry out in this paper a mean–variance (MV) analysis of supply chains under a returns policy. We first propose an MV formulation for a single supplier single retailer supply chain with a newsvendor type of product. The objective of each supply chain decision maker is to maximize the expected profit such that the standard deviation of profit is under the decision maker’s control. We study both the cases with centralized and decentralized supply chains. We illustrate how a returns policy can be applied for managing the supply chains to address the issues such as channel coordination and risk control. Extensive numerical studies are conducted and managerial findings are proposed.     

Demand uncertainty and supplier's returns policies for a multi-store style-good retailer

As demand uncertainty grows in the marketplace, a critical issue today in most purchase contract negotiations between an independent retailer of a style-good and its supplier is the provision of a returns policy, i.e., a commitment by the supplier to buy back unsold inventory of the good at the end of its selling season. Management science research on the strategic role and optimal design of returns policies has grown in recent years but so far offers little treatment of how exactly the retailer's optimal order quantity decisions are affected by demand uncertainty and how a supplier's returns policy can influence these decisions. Employing the traditional “newsboy problem” modeling framework, the authors investigate these issues considering a supplier who faces a retailer with two or more store outlets with normally distributed and possibly correlated demands. To facilitate their analyses, the authors employ a methodology based on special error function representations of the highly nonlinear objective functions of the retailer and supplier. Utilizing this approach, the authors are able to provide explicit insights into how: (a) the buyer's total order quantity decision is affected by the variability in demand; (b) buyback prices in combination with wholesale prices can influence the buyer's order quantity response to demand uncertainty; (c) demand uncertainty moderates the effects of the buyback and wholesale prices; (d) supplier's optimal combination of actions are affected by demand variability; (e) retailer's and supplier's expected profits behave in response to changes in the supplier's actions under different levels of demand variability.     

Profitability of online order fulfillment in multi-channel retailing

Store-based retailers have been concerned about the high fulfillment costs and low gross margins of their online sales. This paper incorporates such issues in a non-linear mixed-integer profit maximization model of the online order fulfillment process for multi-channel retailers. A solution approach based on an iterative outer-approximation technique is developed. Using empirical data from a large U.S. retailer, the profitability of different options used by multi-channel retailers to fill online orders is evaluated. Managerial insights are developed through a factorial research design that highlights the effect of relevant logistics processes and fulfillment methods on the profitability of online sales for retailers.     

Reducing shoplifting by investment in security

We consider a single retailer with a given potential revenue, who sells a product that is subject to shoplifting. In order to decrease losses due to shoplifting and to maximize his profit, the retailer can invest in security measures. In particular, we assume that the retailer purchases security services from a single security supplier. The security supplier decides which price to charge the retailer for these services, with the purpose of maximizing his own profit, and the retailer decides on the quantity of security services to purchase. We address this problem using a game theoretic approach, where the retailer competes with the supplier—the leader—who specifies first the service price. The retailer responds by deciding how much to invest in security. We study the conditions under which both players are profitable and the extent to which double marginalization affects the supply chain performance.     

Manufacturer's pricing strategy and return policy for a single-period commodity

This paper presents a model for designing the pricing and return-credit strategy for a monopolistic manufacturer of single-period commodities. That is, given the unit manufacturing cost and the unit retail sale price, the manufacturer determines: (i) the unit price C to be charged against the retailer; and (ii) the unit credit V to be given to the retailer for units returned. While the manufacturer is allowed to set C and V, the order quantity Q is set by the retailer in response to the manufacturer's C and V. Among the unexpected findings derived from our model are: (i) unless an external force supports the retailer, otherwise the manufacturer can usually design a (C,V)-scheme that gives himself the lion's share of the profit; (ii) depending on the risk attitudes of the manufacturer and the retailer, the optimal return policy can range from “no returns allowed” to “unlimited returns with full credit”; (iii) instead of losing his profit share to the retailer, a return-credits agreement can often be manipulated by a shrewd manufacturer to increase his profit.     

Optimal credit period and lot size for deteriorating items with expiration dates under two-level trade credit financing

In a supplier-retailer-buyer supply chain, the supplier frequently offers the retailer a trade credit of S periods, and the retailer in turn provides a trade credit of R periods to her/his buyer to stimulate sales and reduce inventory. From the seller’s perspective, granting trade credit increases sales and revenue but also increases opportunity cost (i.e., the capital opportunity loss during credit period) and default risk (i.e., the percentage that the buyer will not be able to pay off her/his debt obligations). Hence, how to determine credit period is increasingly recognized as an important strategy to increase seller’s profitability. Also, many products such as fruits, vegetables, high-tech products, pharmaceuticals, and volatile liquids not only deteriorate continuously due to evaporation, obsolescence and spoilage but also have their expiration dates. However, only a few researchers take the expiration date of a deteriorating item into consideration. This paper proposes an economic order quantity model for the retailer where: (a) the supplier provides an up-stream trade credit and the retailer also offers a down-stream trade credit, (b) the retailer’s down-stream trade credit to the buyer not only increases sales and revenue but also opportunity cost and default risk, and (c) deteriorating items not only deteriorate continuously but also have their expiration dates. We then show that the retailer’s optimal credit period and cycle time not only exist but also are unique. Furthermore, we discuss several special cases including for non-deteriorating items. Finally, we run some numerical examples to illustrate the problem and provide managerial insights.     

顾客需求量不确定时生产商的在线数量折扣策略

针对顾客需求量不确定时,生产商为节省库存成本而采用数量折扣策略鼓励零售商提高单次订货量的决策问题,从在线问题与竞争分析的角度出发,设计了平衡策略,并证明了该策略是最优在线数量折扣策略.然后给出了算例,算例表明了无论顾客的需求量如何变化,平衡策略确定出的数量折扣,总能使生产商的成本接近于顾客需求量确定时的最小成本;同时与传统的数量折扣模型进行了对比,说明了在传统的数量折扣模型中做出的决策,往往不是我们所提出的新的评价准则(竞争比)下的最优策略.     

基于电子优惠券的多渠道整合策略研究

在由制造商的网络直销渠道和混合零售商的实体渠道和网络渠道所构成的多渠道供应链中,考虑存在消费者无缺陷退货和消费者对购买渠道偏好的异质性,研究了混合零售商的基于电子优惠券的多渠道整合策略问题。探明了混合零售商愿意采用电子优惠券实现多渠道整合的临界条件,揭示了多渠道整合策略对市场均衡的影响,并且构建了基于零售商订货量和接受消费者退货量的转移支付机制来协调多渠道供应链。     

A DEA analysis of risk,cost, and revenues in insurance

Insurance companies have to take risk and cost into account when pricing car insurance policies that cover the risk of private use of cars. In this paper we use data from 80?000 car insurance policies in order to assess, once risk and cost have been taken into account, the combinations of risk that generate the highest returns for the company under existing pricing practices. We use data envelopment analysis (DEA) and frame the study within an analysis of experiments context. The results of DEA are interpreted in a multivariate statistical analysis context using factor analysis, and property fitting techniques. The impact of risk factors in the efficiency is explored by means of regression analysis with dummy variables. There are consequences for the pricing policy of the company.