Retailer's optimal replenishment policy under cash discount and trade credit linked to order quantity

In the classical inventory systems, the retailer had to settle the accounts of the purchased items at the time they were received. But in practice, the supplier applies some strategic tools, such as trade credit contract, to enhance his sales channel and offers delay period to his customers to settle the account. Any member of the supply chain may offer full or partial trade credit contract to his downstream level. Full trade credit is the case that the latter is allowed to defer the whole payment to the end of the credit period. In partial trade credit, however, the downstream supply chain member must pay for a proportion of the purchased goods at first and can delay paying for the rest until the end of the credit period. This paper considers a two-level trade credit, where the supplier offers order-quantity-dependent partial trade credit to a retailer, who suggests full trade credit to his customers. An economic order quantity (EOQ) inventory model of a deteriorating item is formulated here, and the Branch and Reduce Optimization Navigator is applied to find the optimal replenishment policy. The sensitivity of the variables on different parameters has been analyzed by applying some numerical examples. The data reveal that increasing the credit periods of the retailer and the customers can decrease and increase the retailer’s total cost, respectively.

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The Optimal Replenishment Policy under Trade Credit Financing with Ramp Type Demand and Demand Dependent Production Rate

Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society ◽

10.1155/2014/839418 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 2014 ◽

pp. 1-18 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Juanjuan Qin ◽

Weihua Liu

Keyword(s):

Production Rate ◽

Trade Credit ◽

Optimal Order ◽

Maturity Stage ◽

Order Quantity ◽

Optimal Decisions ◽

Replenishment Policy ◽

Replenishment Cycle ◽

Credit Financing ◽

Ramp Type Demand

This paper investigates the optimal replenishment policy for the retailer with the ramp type demand and demand dependent production rate involving the trade credit financing, which is not reported in the literatures. First, the two inventory models are developed under the above situation. Second, the algorithms are given to optimize the replenishment cycle time and the order quantity for the retailer. Finally, the numerical examples are carried out to illustrate the optimal solutions and the sensitivity analysis is performed. The results show that if the value of production rate is small, the retailer will lower the frequency of putting the orders to cut down the order cost; if the production rate is high, the demand dependent production rate has no effect on the optimal decisions. When the trade credit is less than the growth stage time, the retailer will shorten the replenishment cycle; when it is larger than the breakpoint of the demand, within the maturity stage of the products, the trade credit has no effect on the optimal order cycle and the optimal order quantity.

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