scholarly journals Pricing Decisions of a Supply Chain with Multichannel Retailer under Fairness Concerns

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xueping Zhen ◽  
Dan Shi ◽  
Sang-Bing Tsai ◽  
Wei Wang

With the rapid development of the Internet, many traditional retailers have built their online channels. The fairness concern may play an important role in a dual-channel supply chain with a multichannel retailer. This paper establishes a Stackelberg game model in which a manufacturer produces and sells products through direct online channel and a retailer sells directly to consumers through online and offline channels. The manufacturer’s fairness concern (advantageous inequity) and the retailer’s fairness concern (disadvantageous inequity) are considered. Four scenarios are investigated: no fairness concern (NF), the retailer fairness concern (RF), the manufacturer fairness concern (MF), and both the manufacturer and the retailer fairness concern (MRF). The theoretical analysis shows that if the manufacturer’s advantageous inequity concern is low, the profit of the whole supply chain in the MRF scenario is the greatest. Otherwise, the supply chain profit in the NF or RF scenario is the greatest. That is, the manufacturer’s and the retailer’s fairness concern may increase the profit of the supply chain. This study also finds that the manufacturer’s advantageous inequity concern can increase the social welfare. The retailer should not concern about fairness if the manufacturer has high fairness concern. Besides, this paper shows that the manufacturer’s selling price cannot be affected by the fairness concern. Adjusting the wholesale price is the only thing that the manufacturer can do to reduce disadvantageous or advantageous inequity. In the RF scenario, the role of the retailer’s disadvantageous inequity concern is to reallocate the supply chain profit. Our findings provide some managerial insights on the pricing decision when the multichannel retailer and the manufacturer consider the fairness.

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1041-1056 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiumei Chen ◽  
Wen Zhang ◽  
Zhiying Liu

With the rapid development of the Internet, many manufacturers nowadays are increasingly adopting a dual-channel to sell their products, i.e., the traditional retail channel and online direct channel. In this paper, we focus on retail service, manufacturer’s direct service and quality effort, and present an analytical framework to examine the optimal decisions in dual-channel supply chain between the manufacturer and the retailer. Considering the efficacy of different supply chain structures, centralized and decentralized models are established. By using the backwards induction and the two-stage optimization technique in Stackelberg game, the corresponding analytical equilibrium solutions are obtained. Our analysis shows that the degree of customer loyalty to the direct channel strongly influences the manufacturer’s and the retailer’s services and quality strategies in the decentralized dual-channel supply chain, but not in the centralized model. Our results also point out that compared to centralized model, for any given selling price, the ratio of profit margins of selling one unit in the direct and retail channels determines the retailer’s service strategy; and the manufacturer will raise the level of direct channel service, but put less effort on quality improvement in the decentralized model. Finally, numerical examples present the contrasting view that disparate interests within a dual-channel supply chain can actually realize improving outcomes.


2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (01) ◽  
pp. 1240004 ◽  
Author(s):  
RUN H. NIU ◽  
XUAN ZHAO ◽  
IGNACIO CASTILLO ◽  
TARJA JORO

The Internet is becoming increasingly important as a sales channel. Thus, most large retail firms have adopted a multi-channel strategy that includes both web-based channels and pre-existing offline channels. In this paper, we consider joint pricing and inventory/production decision problems for members in a monopoly two-stage dual-channel retailer supply chain. For a dual-channel retailer, pricing in one channel will affect the demand in the other channel. This subsequently affects the retailer's replenishment (ordering) decisions, which have an impact on the producer's inventory/production plans and wholesale price decisions. It is clear then that pricing decisions and inventory/production decisions are interacting in each member of the supply chain and among the members in the chain as well. In this paper, we analyze joint pricing and inventory/production problems under three scenarios by incorporating intra-product line price interaction in the EOQ model. We show that a unique equilibrium exists under certain realistic conditions. We also provide numerical results that offer insights for pricing strategies for the dual-channel retailer supply chain and for product design for different channels.


Author(s):  
Di Wu ◽  
Juhong Chen ◽  
Ruyu Yan ◽  
Ruijun Zhang

The fierce competition in the recycling industry and the rapid development of internet technology has prompted recycling centers to develop a dual-channel reverse supply chain with both offline and online recycling channels. After the introduction of online channels, recycling centers and third-party recyclers (TPR) have paid attention to the division of profits in supply chain systems and the behavior of fairness concerns. Therefore, it is necessary to help recycling enterprises make pricing decisions in consideration of fairness concerns. This paper is aimed at answering the following two main questions: (1) When the recycling center or TPR have fairness concerns, how does the optimal pricing and revenue of supply chain members change when both sides are neutral? (2) When the fairness concern coefficient changes, how does the overall revenue of the supply chain system change? How should supply chain members adjust their pricing decisions to maximize their own profits? In order to solve the above problems, Stackelberg game models were made from three aspects: both sides are neutral, only the TPR has fairness concerns, and only the recycling center has fairness concerns. Based on the results of the example analyses for the model, we found that when only the TPR has fairness concerns, the profit of the recycling center and the transfer price of offline channels will decrease, while the profit of TPR is the opposite. Furthermore, when only a recycling center has fairness concerns, it will lead to the reduction of not only the recycling price and transfer price of offline channels, but also the profits of the entire supply chain system. Specially, whether it is for a recycling center or TPR, a lower level of fairness concern coefficient has a stronger impact on pricing and revenue than at high levels.


Complexity ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lufeng Dai ◽  
Xifu Wang ◽  
Xiaoguang Liu ◽  
Lai Wei

Manufacturers add online direct channels that inevitably engage in channel competition with offline retail channels. Since price is an important factor in consumers' choice of purchasing channel, pricing strategy has become a popular topic for research on dual-channel competition and coordination. In contrast to previous research on pricing strategies based on the full rationality of members, we focus on the impact of retailers' fairness concerns on pricing strategies. In this study, the hybrid dual-channel supply chain consists of one manufacturer with a direct channel who acts as the leader and a retailer who acts as the follower. First, we use the Stackelberg game approach to determine the equilibrium pricing strategy for a fair caring retailer. Simultaneously, we consider a centralized dual-channel supply chain as the benchmark for a comparative analysis of the efficiency of a decentralized supply chain. Furthermore, we study pricing strategies when the retailer has fairness concerns and determine the complete equilibrium solutions for different ranges of the parameters representing cross-price sensitivity and fairness. Finally, through numerical experiments, the pricing strategies, the profit and utility of the manufacturer and retailer, and the channel efficiency of the supply chain are compared and analysed for two scenarios. We find that fairness concerns reduce the manufacturer's profits, while for the most part, the retailers’ profit can be improved; however, the supply chain cannot achieve complete coordination.


Author(s):  
YuHang Zhang ◽  
Ying Wang

This article studies competition and coordination in a dual-channel supply chain where one supplier supplies homogeneous products to multiple asymmetric retailers, meanwhile, selling products to the end consumers acting as retailers, through a two-level Stackelberg game. This article first studies the asymmetry among the retailers in terms of the different characteristics of the cost, price, quantity. This article finds that a supplier's profits increase when the number of retailers are high enough in the retail market, even though the retail price of the retailers is lower than that of the supplier, or the wholesale price is cut down when there are many retailers competing in the retail market. On the other hand, under certain conditions, the efficiency of supply chain goes to 1. In this article, the authors show that some traditional contracts that can perfectly coordinate the single-channel supply chain, while failing to coordinate the dual-channel supply chain. Therefore, this article puts forth a linear quantity discount contract and first proves it can be applicable to the dual-channel supply chain with asymmetric retailers under a certain special condition where the lead retailer exits the retail market. The authors examine contracts which can reduce the loss of the efficiency, though they cannot completely coordinate a dual-channel supply chain.


2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 653-671
Author(s):  
Zhenkai Lou ◽  
Fujun Hou ◽  
Xuming Lou ◽  
Yubing Zhai

This paper considers tripartite games in a dual-channel supply chain which involves a manufacturer, an offline retailer and an online retailer. Both competition and cooperation issues are analyzed. In the competition model, a Stackelberg game between the manufacturer and two retailers and a Bertrand game between two retailers occur simultaneously. It is shown that the channel which attracts more consumers’ purchase preference is charged a higher wholesale price and it meanwhile declares a higher sales price. In the presence of revenue sharing, cooperation issues between the three participants are studied and the change of the revenue of each participant is analyzed when partial cooperation exists. Further, the definition of the optimum two-player coalition is proposed. We demonstrate that the channel which attracts more preference of consumers is definitely in the optimum coalition. The structure of the two-player coalition is analyzed. Finally, under revenue sharing and cost apportionments, the change of each participant’s profit is examined.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
YuHang Zhang ◽  
Ying Wang

This article studies competition and coordination in a dual-channel supply chain where one supplier supplies homogeneous products to multiple asymmetric retailers, meanwhile, selling products to the end consumers acting as retailers, through a two-level Stackelberg game. This article first studies the asymmetry among the retailers in terms of the different characteristics of the cost, price, quantity. This article finds that a supplier's profits increase when the number of retailers are high enough in the retail market, even though the retail price of the retailers is lower than that of the supplier, or the wholesale price is cut down when there are many retailers competing in the retail market. On the other hand, under certain conditions, the efficiency of supply chain goes to 1. In this article, the authors show that some traditional contracts that can perfectly coordinate the single-channel supply chain, while failing to coordinate the dual-channel supply chain. Therefore, this article puts forth a linear quantity discount contract and first proves it can be applicable to the dual-channel supply chain with asymmetric retailers under a certain special condition where the lead retailer exits the retail market. The authors examine contracts which can reduce the loss of the efficiency, though they cannot completely coordinate a dual-channel supply chain.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Xuemei Zhang ◽  
Chenhao Ma ◽  
Haoran Chen ◽  
Guohu Qi

This paper investigates a dual-channel supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer, where the retailer exhibits vertical and horizontal fairness concerns. The manufacturer or the retailer direct selling and e-commerce platform agency selling modes are employed to characterize the impact of retailer’s fairness concerns on the online channel mode strategy. Results show that the retailer’s fairness concerns only affect the wholesale price and online channel mode strategy. Without the retailer’s fairness concerns, the manufacturer direct selling mode is the best strategy for the manufacturer, which harms the retailer’s utility. With the retailer’s fairness concerns, the manufacturer may choose the manufacturer direct selling or e-commerce platform agency selling mode. When the fairness concern parameters meet a certain range, the e-commerce platform agency selling mode strategy is better for the supply chain members, which can solve the interest conflict between supply chain members. These research findings help dual-channel supply chain members understand how to choose the channel structure strategy to balance the supply chain members’ interests by considering fairness concerns.


2020 ◽  
pp. 2050017
Author(s):  
Abhishek Sharma ◽  
Deepika Jain

This study investigates the fairness concerned behavior of the supply chain members in a dyadic supply chain with one manufacturer and one retailer, wherein the manufacturer puts efforts for improving the product’s greening level and sells it to the customers through the retailer. Through manufacturer-led and retailer-led Stackelberg game frameworks, the study presents two models- one in which only the manufacturer exhibits advantageous inequity averse behavior and the other in which only the retailer exhibits them. The results demonstrate the following findings: (1) the manufacturer’s profit is decreasing while product’s greening level, retailer’s and total supply chain’s profits are increasing and manufacturer’s wholesale price and retailer’s market price are nonmonotone in manufacturer’s fairness concern, (2) the wholesale price, product’s greening level, manufacturer’s profit, and total supply chain’s profit are increasing while retailer’s profit is decreasing and market price is nonmonotone in retailer’s fairness concern. In addition, the study examines the optimality of cost-sharing contract for different ranges of the model parameters. Furthermore, the findings are elucidated through the numerical analysis and managerial insights are generated.


Complexity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiuxiang Li ◽  
Yuhao Zhang ◽  
Yimin Huang

This paper considers a Stackelberg game model in a dual-channel supply chain, which is composed of a manufacturer and a retailer. The manufacturer and retailer consider fairness concern in the market competition, and the manufacturer takes market share and profit as his/her business objectives. The entropy complexity and dynamic characteristic of the dual-channel system are analyzed through mathematical analysis and numerical simulation, such as local stability, bifurcation, entropy, and chaos. The results show that, with the increase of price adjustment speed, the dual-channel supply chain is more complex and falls into a chaotic state in which system entropy increases; the stability of the dual-channel supply chain will be robust with the increase of weight of market share and weaken with the increase of the fairness concern level of the manufacturer and retailer. The high level of fairness concern of the manufacturer and retailer is always disadvantageous to the leading manufacturer but not always bad for the follower retailer. The performance of the dual-channel supply chain is improved with a high level of the manufacturer’s fairness concern and reduced with a high level of the retailer’s fairness concern. We also find the retailer will gain more profits in the chaotic state than the stable state in the Stackelberg game model. The variable feedback control method is applied to control the chaos of the dual-channel supply chain, and choosing appropriate control parameters can make the dual-channel supply chain system return to the stable state from the chaotic state, or delay the system to enter the bifurcation state. The research results can provide a guideline for enterprise decision-making.


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