Supply chain interactions due to store-brand introductions: The impact of retail competition

Store-brand products are of increasing importance in retailing, often causing channel conflict as they compete with national brands. Focusing on the interactions that arise in single-manufacturer single-retailer settings, previous research suggests that one main driver of store-brand profitability to the retailer is that it leads to a reduction of the national-brand wholesale price. Under retail competition, the Robinson Patman Act then introduces an interesting trade-off: A retailer that introduces a store brand incurs the associated costs and risks, while sharing this benefit with its competition. We show that the resulting interactions can cause retailers to play “chicken”, either of them preferring a store-brand introduction by the competitor. Such interactions do not arise in channels with a single retailer, as has been the object of most previous research, and we show that some of the key insights derived from single-retailer models fail to hold when retailers compete. We conduct a numeric study, and our findings suggest that retailers are more likely to randomize their store-brand introduction strategies when customers have strong store preferences, and when the retailers’ store-brand products are similar to the national-brand product in terms of customer valuations and production cost.     

间接和混合渠道下零售商引入自有品牌的影响分析

自有品牌的引入使渠道中制造商和零售商的市场绩效发生了较大变化。本文构建了两个制造商和一个零售商情境下零售商引入自有品牌的模型,分析了在间接渠道和混合渠道两种条件下引入自有品牌对零售商、制造商市场绩效的影响。通过分析表明,在间接渠道和混合渠道下,零售商引入自有品牌后,一方面会导致制造商品牌的批发价格、零售价格和制造商利润的降低,对制造商不利;另一方面能增加渠道总利润、零售商利润及零售商在整个渠道中的利润分成,零售商应该将自有品牌的战略定位为高质高价的品牌,而非低价低质的原始状态型品牌,而制造商单纯靠改变销售渠道模式的策略并不足以对抗自有品牌的冲击。     

A dynamic model for advertising and pricing competition between national and store brands

We study the relationship between the pricing and advertising decisions in a channel where a national brand is competing with a private label. We consider a differential game that incorporates the carryover effects of brand advertising over time for both the manufacturer and the retailer and we account for the complementary and competitive roles of advertising. Analysis of the obtained equilibrium Markov strategies shows that the relationship between advertising and pricing decisions in the channel depends mainly on the nature of the advertising effects. In particular, the manufacturer reacts to higher competitive retailer’s advertising levels by offering price concessions and limiting his advertising expenditures. The retailer’s optimal reaction to competitive advertising effects in the channel depends on two factors: (1) the price competition level between the store and the national brands and (2) the strength of the competitive advertising effects. For example, in case of intense price competition between the two brands combined with a strong manufacturer’s competitive advertising effect, the retailer should lower both the store and the national brands’ prices as a reaction to higher manufacturer’s advertising levels. For the retailer, the main advantage from boosting his competitive advertising investments seems to be driven by increased revenues from the private label. The retailer should however limit his investments in advertising if the latter generates considerable competitive effects on the national brand’s sales.     

Pricing policies under direct vs. indirect channel competition and national vs. store brand competition

This paper analyzes channel pricing in multiple distribution channels under competition between a national brand (NB) and a store brand (SB), where an NB can be distributed both through a direct channel (e-channel) and an indirect channel (local stores) but an SB can be distributed only through an indirect channel. We first explore cross-brand and cross-channel pricing policies. Formulating the problem as a Nash pricing game, we reach two findings: (1) brand loyalty building is profitable for both an NB and an SB; and (2) marketing decisions are more restrictive for an NB channel than they are for the SB channel. We next assess supply chain coordination and reach two findings: (1) wholesale price change does not coordinate the supply chain and (2) an appropriate combination of markup and markdown prices can achieve both supply chain coordination and a win–win outcome for each channel.     

The nested consideration model: Investigating dynamic store consideration sets and store competition

The nested logit model has been widely used to study nested choice. A typical example of such nested choice is store patronage and brand choice. An important limitation of the nested logit model is that it assumes that all alternatives at both levels of the nest are available in the choice set of the consumer. While there is a wide literature on the incorporation of restricted choice sets into the logit model, the logical extension of this analysis to nested restricted choice sets has not been pursued in the literature. In this study we develop a nested consideration model that integrates store choice and brand choice incorporating the formation of dynamic restricted choice sets of both stores and brands. We term the model the nested consideration model and derive the related probabilities in a manner analogous to the well-known nested logit model. In an empirical illustration, we find that the nested consideration model shows better prediction than nested logit models (with the same explanatory variables). We find that it is important to account for dynamic store consideration sets rather than static sets or store loyalty measures. We also conduct simulations to demonstrate the importance of the nested consideration set model for correct pricing and store location decisions of business managers.     

Supply chains in the presence of store brands

Increased competition from store brands is forcing manufacturers to re-evaluate their strategies in regard to pricing and contracting with trade intermediaries. We analyze a supply chain in which a retailer accepts (with the appropriate contractual agreements) a national brand for resale and then determines whether to introduce a store brand, how to price the store brand, and what quantities of the product(s) to order. We show that when the national brand’s cost per unit quality (CPUQ) is larger than the store brand’s CPUQ, then the retailer seeks to introduce the store brand (SB) and the national brand (NB) manufacturer/supplier is unable to deter him from doing so. We find that the efficiency loss in the decentralized supply chain becomes smaller when a store brand is introduced. Recognizing the inadequacy of standard contracts in coordinating this supply chain, we propose a simple minimum order quantity contract that can coordinate this supply chain.     

Pricing and Advertising of Private and National Brands in a Dynamic Marketing Channel

We consider a marketing channel where a retailer sells, along the manufacturer’s brand, its own store brand. We assume that each player invests in advertising in order to build the brand’s goodwill. One distinctive feature of this paper is the introduction of the negative effect of own advertising on other player’s goodwill stock evolution. We characterize feedback-Nash pricing and advertising strategies and assess the impact of the store brand and national brand’s goodwill stocks on these strategies in different settings. The main findings suggest first that investing in building up some equity for each brand reduces the price competition between them and propels the market power for both. Second, the retailer will pass to consumer an increase in its purchasing cost of the national brand in all situations as no coordination is taken into account to counter the double marginalization problem. Finally, the higher the brand equity of the store brand, the more the retailer invests in advertising.     

Consumer environmental awareness and competition in two-stage supply chains

This paper focuses on the impact of competition and consumers’ environmental awareness on key supply chain players. We consider both the production competition between partially substitutable products made by different manufacturers, and the competition between retail stores. We use two-stage Stackelberg game models to investigate the dynamics between the supply chain players given three supply chain network structures. We find that as consumers’ environmental awareness increases, retailers and manufacturers with superior eco-friendly operations will benefit; while the profitability of the inferior eco-friendly firm will tend to increase if the production competition level is low, and will tend to decrease if the production competition level is high. In addition, higher levels of retail competition may make manufacturers with inferior eco-friendly operations more likely to benefit from the increase of consumers’ environmental awareness. Moreover, as production competition intensifies, the profits of the retailers will always increase, while the profits of the manufacturers with inferior eco-friendly operations will always decrease. The profitability of the manufacturers with superior eco-friendly operations will also tend to decrease, unless consumers’ environmental awareness is high and the superior manufacturer has a significant cost advantage related to product environmental improvement.     

Product variety, pricing and differentiation in a supply chain

Manufacturers typically sell consumer products through retailers and the presence of intermediaries has interesting ramifications for their product variety and pricing decisions. Retailers may want higher variety to help reduce price competition but the costs of variety are borne by the manufacturer. The increased variety may increase demand and profits for the manufacturer too but this depends on market-specific factors as well as costs. We explore these interactions through a model wherein a manufacturer sells multiple product variants at a wholesale price to two retailers who in turn compete for consumers. Consumers choose between the retailers based on the price and variety offered by each retailer and the search or transportation cost incurred by the consumer, equivalent to the level of retailer differentiation in our model. Several insights emerge from the analysis. The manufacturer offers the same variety to both retailers and this variety increases with market size and consumer sensitivity to variety. We find that some retailer differentiation benefits the retailers (not the manufacturer) but too much differentiation hurts both the retailers and the manufacturer. If the market is fully covered, then the channel is coordinated even with a simple wholesale pricing contract. If the retailers incur costs to sell the product, the manufacturer surprisingly loses out more than the retailers and in fact absorbs some or all of the retailer costs. Finally, asymmetry between retailers has some unexpected consequences. For example, variety is not impacted by asymmetry in consumer preferences for a retailer and the manufacturer offers the same variety to both retailers.     

National and store brand advertising strategies

As the propensity of premium store brands (SBs) increases, retailers must consider different ways to drive sales besides promotional strategies. With this in mind, we consider a national brand (NB) and a (premium) SB co-existing in a market. Each brand has to decide the amount to invest in advertising its product and the prices to charge its customers, which can be determined separately or in unison. When either advertising expenditures or pricing decisions are set, each brand must keep in mind that the advertising efforts and revenue may spillover between the two brands, customers who intend to purchase the NB may end up purchasing the SB and vice versa. We derive an analytical model of the situations described and characterize equilibrium advertising decisions. We find that the characteristics of a premium SB may depend on which marketing/promoting instrument (advertising or pricing) is the primary method for driving demand; and in some situations an NB may be better off to not advertise at all and instead let the premium SB carry out all of the advertising.     

Manufacturer’s revenue-sharing contract and retail competition

This paper investigates a revenue-sharing contract for coordinating a supply chain comprising one manufacturer and two competing retailers. The manufacturer, as a Stackelberg leader, offers a revenue-sharing contract to two competing retailers who face stochastic demand before the selling season. Under the offered contract terms, the competing retailers are to determine the quantities to be ordered from the manufacturer, prior to the season, and the retail price at which to sell the items during the season. The process of pricing and ordering is expected to result in an equilibrium as in the Bayesian Nash game. On the basis of anticipated responses and actions of the retailers, the manufacturer designs the revenue-sharing contract. Adopting the classic newsvendor problem model framework and using numerical methods, the study finds that the provision of revenue-sharing in the contract can obtain better performance than a price-only contract. However, the benefits earned under the revenue-sharing contract by different supply chain partners differ because of the impact of demand variability and price-sensitivity factors. The paper also analyses the impact of demand variability on decisions about optimal retail price, order quantity and profit sharing between the manufacturer and the retailers. Lastly, it investigates how the competition (between retailers) factor influences the decision-making of supply chain members in response to uncertain demand and profit variability.     

Green product development under competition: A study of the fashion apparel industry

Motivated by the observed industrial issues, we analytically develop a fashion supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and two competing retailers and investigate how retail competition and consumer returns affect green product development in fashion apparel. In the basic model, that is, the pure “product greenness level” game, we find that the optimal greenness level of the fashion product decreases along with the level of market competition. This finding implies that a more competitive market leads to a lower optimal greenness level. We also identify that when the consumer return rate increases, the optimal product greenness level is substantially reduced. In the extended model with joint decisions on greenness and pricing, we find that the optimal product greenness level for the whole channel is always higher in the scenario when both retailers charge a higher retail price than in the case with a lower retail price. As such, the underdevelopment of green fashion products is a result of fashion industry features, such as an extremely competitive environment for green product development, relatively low retail prices for fashion products, and high consumer return rates. Therefore, fashion companies should join a co-opetition game for the green product market and simultaneously enhance their efficiency in managing consumer returns. To support our analytical findings, we conduct extensive industrial interviews with various representative companies. Based on this multi-methodological approach (MMA), this paper generates practice-relevant managerial insights that not only contribute to the literature, but also act as valuable references for industrialists.     

考虑供应链渠道冲突的零售商自有品牌产品定价方法

自有品牌产品定价是电子商务环境下零售商实施渠道管理的关键因素,其合理与否直接影响到零售商利润和供应链稳定.鉴于此,针对存在供应链渠道冲突的零售商自有品牌定价问题,从协调的角度,利用对偶理论与优化模型,构建了基于最小协调成本的零售商自有品牌产品定价决策方法,并利用其探讨协调的经济意义,求解零售商自有品牌产品最优定价.结果表明,所构建的模型能够有效描述和解决零售商自有品牌产品定价问题,并在一定程度上消除供应链渠道冲突,保证供应商和零售商长期有效合作和供应链可持续发展.     

Customization competition between branded firms: Continuous extension of product line from core product

We study a competition of product customization between two branded firms by a game-theoretic approach. Firms produce products with two attributes: one attribute indicates a characteristic with regard to “function” or “design” of a product and the other indicates “taste” or “flavor” of the product, which reflects consumers’ brand/taste preferences. Two branded firms have their own specific core products and our customization is defined as a continuous extension of their product line from the core product only along the “function” attribute. In particular, we allow asymmetric positions of core products, which may create the position advantage/disadvantage between firms. We suppose that consumers incur their selection costs with regard to finding their most favorable item among a rich variety of products and firms incur their customizing costs with regard to extending their product lines. We first show that in the equilibrium, branded firms should fundamentally adopt their customizations to cover the center space in the market as far as possible, regardless of the position of the competitor’s core product. Therefore, the position of the core product contributes to the creation of a competitive advantage: when one firm’s core product is located more closely to the center of the market than the competitor’s, its customization can always cover more range of the center space in the market, while keeping its degree of customization smaller than the competitor’s. Furthermore, we show some implications of unit-cost improvement: in a short run, a firm is better off concentrating on the improvement of the unit selection cost rather than the unit customizing cost. In contrast, in a long run, both firms can benefit from the improvement of the unit customizing cost.     

A multi-period ordering and clearance pricing model considering the competition between new and out-of-season products

The joint management of pricing and inventory for perishable products has become an important problem for retailers. This paper investigates a multi-period ordering and clearance pricing model under consideration of the competition between new and out-of-season products. In each period, the ordering quantity of the new product and the clearance price of the out-of-season product are determined as decision variables before the demand is realized, and the unsold new product becomes the out-of-season one of the next period. We establish a finite-horizon Markov decision process model to formulate this problem and analyze its properties. A traditional dynamic program (DP) approach with two-dimensional search is provided. In addition, a myopic policy is derived in which only the profit of the current period is considered. Finally, we apply genetic algorithm (GA) to this problem and design a GA-based heuristic approach, showing by comparison among different algorithms that the GA-based heuristic approach is more performance sound than the myopic policy and much less time consuming than the DP approach.     

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。     

价格与质量双重竞争下电商平台渠道模式决策研究

近年来传统电商正加速从经销商转变为连接消费者与供应商的在线市场中间商, 电商平台与供应商形成三种渠道结构:经销商模式、混合模式和在线市场模式。本文通过构建Stackelberg博弈模型讨论产品质量与价格双重竞争情境下电商平台与供应商销售合作模式最新选择问题。研究表明,当价格竞争强度适中而佣金比例较大时,混合模式是电商平台最优选择,此时产品质量差异最大;当价格竞争强度较小而佣金比例较大时,在线市场模式则是最优选择;在其他条件下,经销商模式是其最优选择。本文结论对电商平台与供应商合作模式选择、产品质量与定价决策具有参考价值。     

Decentralization versus coordination in competing supply chains under retailers’ extended warranties

This paper studies a two-tier duopoly competing supply chain system consisting of two manufacturers and two exclusive retailers. Both manufacturers produce differentiated products and both retailers provide extended warranties for the products they sell. Two types of channel-structure strategy options are considered: a decentralized structure with a wholesale price contract and a coordinated structure with a sophisticated contract. We first derive the equilibrium outcomes under three possible chain-to-chain competition scenarios. Subsequently, we reveal how manufacturers control their retail channels to gain more supply chain system profit under an interactive environment with supply chain competition and retailers’ extended warranties. We find that pure coordinated channel competition and pure decentralized channel competition may both reach equilibrium. Furthermore, the interaction forces of supply chain competition and extended warranty service significantly impact the characteristics of the equilibria. Finally, we analyze the competing supply chain’s coordination contract design by using the example of a two-part tariff contract, and determine the feasible contract parameter range that results in a win-win solution for supply chain members.

     

Price competition with integrated and decentralized supply chains

We consider price competition with a linear demand function and compare two cases. In the first case each distribution channel is vertically integrated, while in the second, decentralised, case the manufacturers and retailers act independently. We explore the effect of varying the level of price competition on the profits of the industry participants and demonstrate the important role played by the spread of underlying market shares. The coefficient of variation of these market shares determines whether decentralised supply chains can outperform integrated supply chains with an appropriate level of competition.     

产能约束下的供应商竞争

买方市场中,占据主导地位的零售商通常会引入生产同质产品的两家或多家供应商,以满足自身的需求,并通过供应商之间的竞争获取更高的利益。价格竞争是供应商为了争夺市场份额的重要手段。然而,在产能充足的前提下,竞争的最终结果是双方均不获利。本文从产能角度出发,运用报童模型分析了两个生产同质产品的供应商在不同产能下,竞争对供应商和零售商的影响。通过分析对比产能对称和不对称两种情况,我们发现竞争对于零售商来说总是有利的,而对于相互竞争的供应商来说,产能大小应该限定在一定范围内,并从中获得一些管理学方面启示。