scholarly journals Pricing and Coordination Strategies of Dual Channels Considering Consumers’ Channel Preferences

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (20) ◽  
pp. 11191
Author(s):  
Rufeng Wang ◽  
Siqi Wang ◽  
Shuli Yan

With the rapid development of electronic commerce, consumers can freely buy the same product from a manufacturers’ Internet channel or a resellers’ physical channel. Based on the consumers’ channel preferences, this article classifies consumers into three types and investigates the price decision in a dual-channel supply chain using a Stackelberg game, which assumes that the manufacturer, as the game leader, first sets the wholesale price, then the reseller decides the retail price, according to the wholesale price. Furthermore, some numerical experiments are developed to investigate the impact of consumer acceptance, the degree of customer loyalty, and the proportion of identical shoppers on prices and profits. The results show that whether both the retail price and the wholesale price rise or fall depends on a combination of the cost of the physical channel and the Internet shopper’s acceptance of the Internet channel. The reseller’s profit is always lower than the manufacturer’s profit. The reseller’s profit is lower and the manufacturer’s profit is higher, compared with that of a traditional single channel supply chain. The numerical experiments showed that when an Internet shopper’s acceptance of an Internet channel is lower, the wholesale price and retail price in the dual channels will increase with an increase of the degree of customer loyalty (the proportion of identical shoppers). The reseller’s profit (the manufacturer’s profit) will reduce (rise) with the augmentation of the Internet shopper’s acceptance of an Internet channel. Finally, we design a revenue-sharing contract that can coordinate the supply chain and implement a win–win strategy for all partners. This work makes some contributions to the research area of coordination in dual-channel supply chains.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Xianjin Du ◽  
Weijie Zhao

This paper investigates a dual-channel supply chain in which a manufacturer sells the product via an offline retailer or online store. The manufacturer sets the wholesale and online price, and the retailer decides the retail price with the retailer’s fairness preference and consumer’s online channel preference. Through investigating the combined impacts of fairness preference and channel preference on the enterprises’ operational strategies, this paper obtains some meaningful results. If a manufacturer thinks over the fairness preference, he decreases the wholesale price to mitigate a loss of retailer and benefit the supply chain design. The manufacturer intends to set up the online channel with a lower acceptance as the fairness preference grows. However, the gains from enhanced online channel acceptance cannot compensate for the manufacturer’s loss by the fairness effect that benefits the retailer. Moreover, the manufacturer cannot neglect the retailer’s fairness preference generating a “lose-lose” case for both members.


Author(s):  
Bo Yan ◽  
Jing Fan ◽  
Jiwen Wu

By constructing a dual-channel fresh agricultural product (FAP) supply chain consisting of a retailer and a supplier, this paper considers the effect of fresh-keeping level on the freshness of perishable products and constructs a time-varying demand function based on freshness. The operating cost of the internet channel to the supplier has also been considered in the model. Optimal pricing strategy and profits of supply chain members under dual channels are investigated respectively in this paper. Comparing the optimal profit under traditional single-channel and dual-channel supply chain, we obtain the condition that the internet operating cost should satisfy. Given the situation where the supplier obtains profit while the retailer loses after the supplier introduced the internet channel, this paper proposes a revenue-sharing contract to make up for the loss of the retailer and achieves a win-win situation. Research shows that in the numerical analysis the supplier’s and the retailer’s profit can only be improved when the operating cost of the internet channel  c  0  and revenue-sharing ratio ψ are within a certain range. When ψ ≥ 0.4 and 0 ≤ c 0  ≤ [[EQUATION]] , Pareto improvement will be attained on both sides in the supply chain.  


Author(s):  
Ue-Pyng Wen ◽  
Yun-Chu Chen ◽  
Kam-Hong Cheung

In this article, equal pricing strategies are studied in a dual channel supply chain where a manufacturer sells to a retailer as well as to consumers through a direct channel according to the assumption that the manufacturer commits setting the same retail price as the traditional channel to reduce the channel’s conflict. The authors first analyze the effect of different pricing strategies on the retail price, wholesale price and profits. The cooperative strategy is also studied to see how it benefits both parties in the dual channel supply chain. Finally, through a numerical example, it is demonstrated that providing convenience of the direct channel is important for the manufacturer and service is a distinctive advantage for the retailer. Furthermore, the paper shows that if the service quality has a significant effect on the direct channel, then the manufacturer tends to abandon commitment of equal pricing strategy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 777-796
Author(s):  
Wei Wei ◽  
Shue Mei ◽  
Jiameng Yang ◽  
Zhiyong John Liu

Purpose More and more firms are utilizing social media as a distribution channel to sell products. By establishing business accounts on social media firms provide information service to strengthen their relationship with customers and boost sales. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pricing, information service provision and channel strategies of firms who sell products through social media. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a game theoretical model to study a dual-channel supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer. Two scenarios are considered – under one scenario the manufacturer and under the other the retailer, respectively, solely provides information service. Both firms’ pricing decisions and profits are compared. Findings The authors find that in the dual-channel model with either the manufacturer or the retailer providing information service to enhance the demand: a firm that has stronger social ties with customers is willing to provide more information services; when the manufacturer provides information service, it charges a direct price higher than the wholesale price, and whether the direct-channel price exceeds the retail price depends on the strength of the manufacturer’s social ties with customers; when the retailer provides information service, the direct price is equal to the wholesale price, both lower than the retail price; and a firm always prefers itself rather than the other firm to provide information service. However, the whole supply chain is better off if the manufacturer rather than the retailer provides information service. Research limitations/implications Besides the relationship between firms and customers, the peer relationship among customers also impacts the supply chain performance, which might be studied in the future. Originality/value The study is novel in theoretically exploring the influence of firms’ social relationship with customers on firms’ pricing and channel strategies.


Author(s):  
Ue-Pyng Wen ◽  
Yun-Chu Chen ◽  
Kam-Hong Cheung

In this article, equal pricing strategies are studied in a dual channel supply chain where a manufacturer sells to a retailer as well as to consumers through a direct channel according to the assumption that the manufacturer commits setting the same retail price as the traditional channel to reduce the channel’s conflict. The authors first analyze the effect of different pricing strategies on the retail price, wholesale price and profits. The cooperative strategy is also studied to see how it benefits both parties in the dual channel supply chain. Finally, through a numerical example, it is demonstrated that providing convenience of the direct channel is important for the manufacturer and service is a distinctive advantage for the retailer. Furthermore, the paper shows that if the service quality has a significant effect on the direct channel, then the manufacturer tends to abandon commitment of equal pricing strategy.


2017 ◽  
Vol 117 (8) ◽  
pp. 1567-1588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingcheng Kong ◽  
Zhiyang Liu ◽  
Yafei Pan ◽  
Jiaping Xie ◽  
Guang Yang

Purpose The online direct selling mode has been widely accepted by enterprises in the O2O era. However, the dual-channel (online/offline, forward/backward) operations of the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) changed the relationship between manufacturers and retailers, thus resulting in channel conflict. The purpose of this paper is to take a dual-channel operations of CLSC as the research target, where a manufacturer sells a single product through a direct e-channel as well as a conventional retail channel; the retailer are responsible for collecting used products in the reverse supply chain and the manufacturer are responsible for remanufacturing. Design/methodology/approach The authors build a benchmark model of dual-channel price and service competition and take the return rate, which is considered to be related to the service level of the retailer, as the function of the service level to extend the model in the reverse SC. The authors then analyze the optimal pricing and service decision under centralization and decentralization, respectively. Finally, with the revenue-sharing factor, wholesale price and recycling price transfer payment coefficient as contract parameters, the paper also designs a revenue-sharing contract led by the manufacturer and explores in what situation the contract could realize the Pareto optimization of all players. Findings In the baseline model, the results show that optimal price and service level correlate positively in centralization; however, the relation relies on consumers’ price sensitivity in decentralization. In the extension model, the relationship between price and service level also relies on the relative value of increased service cost and remanufacturing saved cost. When the return rate correlates with the service level, a recycling transfer payment can elevate the service level and thus raise the return rate. Through analyzing the parameters in revenue-sharing contract, a point can be reached where lowering the wholesale price and raising the transfer payment coefficient will promote retailers to share revenue. Practical implications Many enterprises establish the dual-channel distribution system both online and offline, which need to understand how to resolve their channel conflict. The conflict is especially strong in CLSC with remanufacturing. The result helps the node enterprises realize the coordination of the dual-channel CLSC. Originality/value It takes into account the fact that there are two complementary relationships, such as online selling and offline delivery; used product recycling and remanufacturing. The authors optimize the strategy of product pricing and service level in order to solve channel conflict and double marginalization in the closed-loop dual-channel distribution network.


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.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Yang ◽  
Haorui Liu ◽  
Xuedou Yu ◽  
Fenghua Xiao

In consideration of influence of loss, freshness, and secret retailer cost of products, how to handle emergency events during three-level supply chain is researched when market need is presumed to be a nonlinear function with retail price in fresh agricultural product market. Centralized and decentralized supply chain coordination models are studied based on asymmetric information. Optimal strategy of supply chain in dealing with retail price perturbation is caused by emergency events. The research reveals robustness for optimal production planning, wholesale price for distributors, wholesale price for retailers, and retail price of three-level supply chain about fresh agricultural products. The above four factors can keep constant within a certain perturbation of expectation costs for retailers because of emergency events; the conclusions are verified by numerical simulation. This paper also can be used for reference to the other related studies in how to coordinate the supply chain under asymmetric and punctual researches information response to disruptions.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document