考虑保质期的非即时易腐品最优订购与定价决策

针对有保质期约束的非即时易腐品,零售商可以在产品非腐败阶段和腐败阶段进行差异化定价来调整市场需求。即零售商可以调整产品非腐败阶段的定价策略,使得非即时易腐品在进入腐败阶段之前全部售出;或者在产品腐败阶段降低零售价格以刺激市场需求。因此,在需求依赖价格的假设下,本文研究了零售商关于有保质期约束的非即时易腐品的最优订购与定价决策。通过分析零售商单位时间利润函数的理论性质,得到了零售商的最优订购与定价策略。基于线性和指数型两种需求函数形式进行数值算例,可以发现针对保质期较长或者非腐败阶段较长的易腐品,零售商会延长订货周期来增加销售收入。特别是在指数型需求函数情境下,当市场需求与零售价格高度相关时,零售商更有意愿降价来刺激销量,从而使得易腐品在非腐败阶段内销售完毕。     

Revenue management for a supply chain with two streams of customers

In this paper, we consider revenue management for a service supply chain with one supplier and one retailer. The supplier has a limited capacity of a perishable product and both the supplier and the retailer face customers. Each customer may choose to buy a product from either the supplier or the retailer by considering prices and the cost associated with switching. For the centralized model, the supplier determines the selling prices for both herself and the retailer, and the retailer simply collects a commission fee for each product sold. We derive monotone properties for the revenue functions and pricing strategies. Further, we show that the commission fee increases the retailer’s price while decreasing the supplier’s and leads to efficiency loss of the chain. For the decentralized decision-making model, the supplier and the retailer compete in price over time. Two models are considered. In the first, the retailer buys products from the supplier before the selling season and in the second the retailer shares products with the supplier in retailing. For both models, we discuss the existence of the equilibrium and characterize the optimal decisions. Numerical results are presented to illustrate properties of the models and to compare the supply chain performance between the centralized and the decentralized models.     

Coordination mechanism for the supply chain with leadtime consideration and price-dependent demand

We study a coordination contract for a supplier–retailer channel producing and selling a fashionable product exhibiting a stochastic price-dependent demand. The product’s selling season is short, and the supply chain faces great demand uncertainty. We consider a scenario where the supplier reserves production capacity for the retailer in advance, and permits the retailer to place an order not exceeding the reserved capacity after a demand information update during a leadtime. We formulate a two-stage optimization problem in which the supplier decides the amount of capacity reservation in the first stage, and the retailer determines the order quantity and the retail price after observing the demand information in the second stage. We propose a three-parameter risk and profit sharing contract that coordinates the supply chain. The proposed contract permits any agreed-upon division of the supply-chain profit between the channel members.     

Postponed two-pricing and ordering opportunity for selling a single season inventoried product

Postponement strategies are becoming increasingly important in light of a global trend in which products’ life-cycles are decreasing, such that even products that are not traditionally considered seasonal become “obsolete” within a short period of time (e.g., electronic devices, new cars). Our work addresses postponed-pricing and ordering decisions for a retailer who sells a newsvendor-type inventoried product, in a selling season that is divided into two sub-periods. The division of the selling season enables the retailer to on-line adjust her decisions when faced with a scenario (one that is highly prevalent in reality) in which potential demand changes (increases or decreases) following consumers’ experiences of the product in early stages of the selling season. We assume that the retailer has two opportunities for receiving shipments: prior to the first sub-period and prior to the second one. The retailer determines each order quantity (base-stock level) on the basis of the demand distribution for the corresponding sub-period. In each sub-period, after observing additional market signals, the retailer determines the price of the product for that sub-period. With the aid of a stochastic programming approach, we develop optimization problems and solution methods in order to obtain pricing and ordering decisions that maximize the expected profit of the retailer. We present an extensive numerical example that compares the suggested strategy to three alternative strategies, and conclude that price postponement and responsiveness to demand changes can each reduce leftovers and lost sales as well as substantially increase expected profit.     

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。     

The implications of postponement on contract design and channel performance

We analyze a supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer under consignment sales with a revenue sharing contract. The manufacturer produces before, but charges price to sell the products through the retailer after the demand curve is revealed. The retailer deducts a fraction from the selling price for each unit sold and remits the balance to manufacturer. We refer to the capability whereby firms delay price decision and make sales in response to actual market condition as postponement. We find that, when market demand admits a multiplicative structure, the revenue share and allocation of channel profit between the firms when they have postponement capability are similar to when they do not have such capability. Postponement improves the profits of individual firms. Such an effect is more phenomenal in the centralized system than in decentralized system, and when the market demand is more sensitive to price changes. However, it causes the profit loss, defined as the percentage deviation of channel profit in the decentralized system relative to the centralized system, to worsen, and the gap widens with retailer’s sales cost. When the demand has an additive structure, while the roles of postponement on firms’ decisions differ slightly from those under the multiplicative structure, the structure of the strategic interactions between firms and relative channel performance are not significantly altered.     

On channel coordination through revenue-sharing contracts with price and shelf-space dependent demand

This paper deals with the problem of coordinating a vertically separated channel under a consignment contract with revenue sharing. We consider the demand of the downstream player, e.g., the retailer, being price and shelf-space sensitive. Under such a setting, the retailer decides on the revenue-sharing percentage and the slotting fee. And the upstream player, e.g., the manufacturer, decides on the retail price and the size of shelf-space. For each item sold, the retailer deducts an agreed-upon percentage from the selling price and remits the balance to the manufacturer. We model the decision-making of the two firms as a Stackelberg game, and carry out equilibrium analysis for both the centralized and decentralized regimes of the channel, with and without cooperation. In addition, a profit sharing scheme through a two-part slotting allowance is proposed, which leads to Pareto improvements among channel participants. Our analysis reveals that the non-cooperative game tends to set a higher revenue-sharing percentage and lower slotting fee by the retailer, and a higher retail price and less display space by the manufacturer, which leads to a lower channel profit. The consistent bias can be perfectly rectified by the cooperative game through the proposed two-part contractual agreement.     

零售商主导的模糊供应链博弈——考虑销售努力的情形

以包含一个制造商与一个零售商的两级供应链为研究对象,考虑零售商居于主导地位并付出销售努力时供应链各成员的决策。结合经济环境的不确定性,将市场需求函数和制造商的制造成本、零售商的经营成本视为模糊变量;运用斯塔克尔伯格模型刻画零售商和制造商之间的博弈过程,并引入期望值模型、机会约束模型来解决最优决策问题;通过一个数值算例证明了供应链博弈模型的有效性。研究表明,在均衡结果中,考虑到零售商所承担的销售努力成本,其总体期望值利润相比于制造商而言偏低,但单位产品边际利润较高。原因在于,零售商的主导地位使其不仅通过销售努力提高产品销量,提高了供应链的整体利润,同时也能够采用压低批发价格的方式,使自身在供应链中获取更多收益。     

Bundle pricing of inventories with stochastic demand

We consider a retailer selling a fixed inventory of two perishable products over a finite horizon. Assuming Poisson arrivals and a bivariate reservation price distribution, we determine the optimal product and bundle prices that maximize the expected revenue. Our results indicate that the performances of mixed bundling, pure bundling and unbundled sales strategies heavily depend on the parameters of the demand process and the initial inventory levels. Bundling appears to be most effective with negatively correlated reservation prices and high starting inventory levels. When the starting inventory levels are equal and in excess of average demand, most of the benefits of bundling can be achieved through pure bundling. However, the mixed bundling strategy dominates the other two when the starting inventory levels are not equal. We also observe that an incorrect modeling of the reservation prices may lead to significant losses. The model is extended to allow for price changes during the selling horizon. It is shown that offering price bundles mid-season may be more effective than changing individual product prices.     

Consignment contracting: Who should control inventory in the supply chain?

Consignment is a popular form of business arrangement where supplier retains ownership of the inventory and gets paid from the retailer based on actual units sold. The popularity of such an arrangement has come with some continued debates on who should control the supply chain inventory, the supplier or retailer. This paper aims at shedding light on these debated issues. We consider a single period supply chain model where a supplier contracts with a retailer. Market demand for the product is price-sensitive and uncertain. The supplier decides his consignment price charged to the retailer for each unit sold, and the retailer then chooses her retail price for selling the product. We study and compare two different consignment arrangements: The first allows the retailer to choose the supply chain inventory, together with her retail price, and is labeled as a Retailer Managed Consignment Inventory (RMCI) program; and the second calls for the supplier to decide the inventory, together with his consignment price, and is labeled as a Vendor Managed Consignment Inventory (VMCI) program. We show that with an RMCI program, the supply chain loses at least 26.4% of its first-best (expected) profit, while with VMCI, it loses just or no more than 26.4% of the first-best profit. Second, we demonstrate that both programs lead to an equal split of the corresponding channel profit between the supplier and the retailer. These results indicate that it is beneficial both to the supplier and to the retailer when delegating the inventory decision to the supplier rather than to the retailer in the channel.     

促销努力成本信息不对称下供应链回购契约

在由一个供应商和一个销售商构成的二级供应链,假设市场需求受到销售商的促销努力水平的影响,销售季节到来之前,销售商根据促销成本和收益决定最优促销努力水平和订货量。在促销成本不可观测时,利用委托代理理论研究信息不对称时如何通过回购契约揭示真实的促销努力成本。研究结果表明销售商有动机将努力促销成本报高,为了吸引销售商显示真实的促销努力成本,供应商必须付出额外的信息租金,随促销成本增大,销售商通过虚报高成本获得的利润减小,故需要揭示真实成本信息所付出的信息租金随之减小。由于信息租金的付出,导致了非效率现象的产生,使得销售商的最优订货量和促销努力水平均小于完全信息下系统的最优水平,只能得到帕累托改进的次优结果。     

Coordinated decisions for substitutable products in a common retailer supply chain

This paper studies coordination mechanisms in a supply chain which consists of two suppliers with capacity uncertainties selling differential yet substitutable products through a common retailer who faces price-sensitive random demand of these two products. We develop in a noncompetitive setting three coordination models – revenue sharing, return policy, and combination of revenue sharing and return policy – and contrast them with a basic and uncoordinated model. We are able to establish the ordinal relationship among the retailer’s ordering and pricing decisions and analytically compare the performances between certain models when two suppliers are identical. We find that the retailer’s ordering and pricing decisions in the model with return policy in the case of identical suppliers are independent of demand or supply uncertainty. Our numerical results reveal that the performances of coordination models in the case of nonidentical suppliers resemble those in the case of identical suppliers. We find that the retailer will place a larger order quantity in models where her average cost per unit sold is smaller. We also find that product substitutability and uncertainties have different effects on chain performances.     

Responsive pricing under supply uncertainty

Consider a retailer orders a seasonal product from a supplier and sells the product over a selling season. While the product demand is known to be a linear function of price, the supply yield is uncertain and is distributed according to a general discrete probability distribution. This paper presents a two-stage stochastic model for analyzing two pricing policies: No Responsive Pricing and Responsive Pricing. Under the No Responsive Pricing policy, the retailer would determine the order quantity and the retail price before the supply yield is realized. Under the Responsive Pricing policy, the retailer would specify the order quantity first and then decide on the retail price after observing the realized supply yield. Therefore, the Responsive Pricing policy enables the retailer to use pricing as a response mechanism for managing uncertain supply. Our analysis suggests that the retailer would always obtain a higher expected profit under the Responsive Pricing policy. In addition to examining the impact of yield distribution and system parameters on the optimal order quantities, retail prices, and profits under these two pricing policies, we analyze two issues arising from responsive pricing. The first issue deals with the case in which the retailer can place an emergency order with an alternative source after observing the realized yield, while the second issue deals with a situation in which the retailer has to allocate his order among multiple suppliers.     

The impact of dynamic pricing on the economic order decision

This paper analyzes the impact of dynamic pricing on the single product economic order decision of a monopolist retailer. Items are procured from an external supplier according to the economic order quantity (EOQ) model and are sold to customers on a single market without competition following the simple monopolist pricing problem. Coordinated decision making of optimal pricing and ordering is influenced by operating costs – including ordering and inventory holding costs – and the demand rate obtained from a price response function. The retailer is allowed to vary the selling price, either in a fixed number of discrete points in time or continuously. While constant and continuous pricing have received much attention in the literature, problems with a limited number of price changes are rather rare. This paper illustrates the benefit of dynamically changing prices to achieve operational efficiency in the EOQ model, that is to trigger high demand rates when inventories are high. We provide structural properties of the optimal time instants when the price should be changed. Taking into account costs for changes in price, it provides numerical guidance on number, timing, and size of price changes during an order cycle. Numerical examples show that the benefits of dynamic pricing in an EOQ framework can be achieved with only a few price changes and that products being unprofitable under static pricing may become profitable under dynamic pricing.     

Two-period pricing and decision strategies in a two-echelon supply chain under price-dependent demand

This paper presents a two-period supply chain model which is comprised of one manufacturer and one retailer who are involved in trading a single product. The demand rate in each period is dependent on the selling prices of the current period and the previous period. We assume that the manufacturer acts as the Stackelberg leader and declares wholesale price(s) to the retailer who follows the manufacturer’s decision and sets his selling prices for two consecutive periods. The manufacturer adopts one of the two pricing options: (1) setting the same wholesale price to both the selling periods (2) setting different wholesale prices to two different selling periods. Based on these pricing options, we develop four decision strategies of the manufacturer and the retailer and compare them. For a numerical example, we study the effects of these decision strategies on the optimal results of the supply chain. Further, we graphically analyze under what circumstances a particular decision strategy plays a dominant role.     

Channel coordination under two-level trade credits and demand uncertainty

This study considers a decentralized supply chain where a retailer has an opportunity to order a product from a supplier prior to the sales season to satisfy uncertain demand. The retailer provides trade credit to end customers and makes credit period and order quantity decisions to maximize profits. The end demand is both random and credit period-dependent. On the basis of the newsvendor model, this paper focuses on channel coordination when a retailer provides trade credit to end customers. When the supplier also provides trade credit to the retailer, we show that the traditional trade credit contract cannot coordinate the channel. Four composite contracts based on trade credit (trade credit cost sharing with buy back or quantity flexibility; modified trade credit with buy back or quantity flexibility) are provided to induce the retailer to make decisions while optimizing the channel profit. This paper shows that the retailer provides a longer credit period to its customers and orders a larger quantity from the supplier under the composite contracts. With these contracts, the profit sharing between both parties depends on the wholesale price (Pareto improvement) for the fixed retail price and the purchasing cost.     

Coordinating a three-echelon fresh agricultural products supply chain considering freshness-keeping effort with asymmetric information

This paper studies the coordination problem of a three-echelon supply chain system consisting of one supplier, third-party logistics service providers (TPLSP) and one retailer that provides seasonal fresh agricultural products to customers. The market demand for the retailer is assumed to be influenced by the retail price, the product's freshness and other random variables. Both quantity and quality losses are viewed as endogenous variables of the freshness-keeping effort, which is decided by the TPLSP. Dynamic game models for both the decentralized decision mode and the centralized decision mode are developed, and asymmetric demand information is considered in the decentralized decision mode. The analysis shows that decentralized decision making could result in the distortion of the order quantity and selling price and could ultimately result in a loss of supply chain profit. The TPLSP is motivated to exaggerate the demand, which could seriously damage the supplier's interests. Based on an analysis of the major influencing factors in the supply chain system, a coordination contract based on cost and revenue sharing (RS) is designed for the two transaction processes in the three-echelon supply chain system. We illustrate the proposed models with a numerical study and conduct a sensitivity analysis of some of the key parameters in the models. It is proven that with the designed contract, the sales volume can be significantly expanded, all the supply chain members can benefit from Pareto improvement, and both the retailer and the TPLSP have no incentive to exaggerate the market demand.     

供应链零售商预测技术研究—基于牛鞭效应的视角

一阶自回归(AR(1))序列模拟需求过程是传统文献采用的经典模型,然而上述文献关于需求过程参数(如需求自回归系数)对牛鞭效应的影响分析缺乏实践意义,为了更符合企业的实际决策过程,本文建立了需求依赖于价格、而以AR(1)序列模拟价格过程的需求函数模型,分析了最小均方差、移动平均和指数平滑预测下的牛鞭效应,确定了零售商的预测技术选择条件。研究表明:(1)产品市场规模不影响零售商预测技术的选择;(2)当产品价格敏感系数较小或价格自回归系数较小时,零售商应选择最小均方差预测技术;(3)当产品价格敏感系数和价格自回归系数均较大时,零售商应选择移动平均预测技术。     

双渠道闭环供应链的三种回收模式的建模分析

针对生产商负责网上直销、零售商负责网下零售、且具有回收再制造功能的双渠道闭环供应链,首先分析了生产商负责产品回收和零售商负责产品回收下生产商和零售商之间的博弈行为,建立了刻画两种回收模式的两层规划模型;进而假定生产商委托第三方企业负责回收,分析了生产商、零售商和第三方回收企业之间的博弈行为,建立了对应此一主两从博弈结构的带均衡约束的两层规划模型.对所得模型进行了模型求解,得到了三种回收模式下双渠道闭环分散式供应链的最优直销价、零售价和回收再制造率决策.通过数值算例对上述三种回收模式进行了比较分析,并对刻画网上直销吸引力的相关参数进行了灵敏度分析.研究发现,生产商负责回收时的回收再制造率最高;网上直销具有激发潜在需求(正效应)和吸引零售市场需求发生转移(负效应)的双重效应等.     

Optimal spot market inventory strategies in the presence of cost and price risk

We consider a firm facing random demand at the end of a single period of random length. At any time during the period, the firm can either increase or decrease inventory by buying or selling on a spot market where price fluctuates randomly over time. The firm’s goal is to maximize expected discounted profit over the period, where profit consists of the revenue from selling goods to meet demand, on the spot market, or in salvage, minus the cost of buying goods, and transaction, penalty, and holding costs. We first show that this optimization problem is equivalent to a two-dimensional singular control problem. We then use a recently developed control-theoretic approach to show that the optimal policy is completely characterized by a simple price-dependent two-threshold policy. In a series of computational experiments, we explore the value of actively managing inventory during the period rather than making a purchase decision at the start of the period, and then passively waiting for demand. In these experiments, we observe that as price volatility increases, the value of actively managing inventory increases until some limit is reached.