Competition and Coordination in a Fashion Supply Chain with Wholesale Pricing Schemes

Author(s):  
Jian Huang ◽  
Mingming Leng ◽  
Liping Liang

This chapter considers a two-echelon supply chain where a supplier determines his production quantity and a retailer chooses her order size and retail price for each period in an infinite horizon. Under a price-discount sharing (PDS) scheme, the supplier’s wholesale price linearly depends on the retail price. We develop a stochastic game in which these two supply chain members maximize their discounted profits. We show that a unique Nash equilibrium solution exists for each period, and over the infinite horizon the supplier chooses a stationary base stock policy whereas the retailer’s equilibrium solution could be non-stationary. Next, we investigate the problem of whether or not a wholesale pricing scheme can coordinate the supplier and the retailer, and derive the conditions for supply chain coordination. Moreover, we use Nash arbitration scheme to allocate the system-wide profit between the supplier and the retailer.

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.


Author(s):  
Weixin Shang ◽  
Gangshu (George) Cai

Problem definition: Few papers have explored the impact of price matching negotiation (PM), in which a channel matches its price with the resulting wholesale price bargained by another channel, on firms’ performances, consumer welfare, and social welfare, with and without supply chain coordination. Academic/practical relevance: Negotiation has been widely seen in determining both uniform and discriminatory wholesale prices, which affect outcomes of competitive supply chain practices. Methodology: To characterize the PM mechanism, we use game theory and Nash bargaining theory to compare PM with simultaneous negotiation (SN) through a common-seller two-buyer differentiated Bertrand competition model. Results: Our analysis reveals that PM can benefit the seller but hurt all buyers, which is at odds with some fair wholesale pricing clauses intending to protect buyers. Under coordination with side payments, however, all firms can conditionally benefit more from PM than from SN. Despite firms’ gains, PM leads to less consumer utility and social welfare compared with SN, unless the second buyer in PM is considerably less powerful than the first buyer. Coordination further worsens PM’s negative impact on consumer utility and social welfare. Moreover, the existence of a spot market can increase the wholesale price in PM, hurting buyers, consumers, and society. Furthermore, the qualitative results about PM remain robust under an alternative disagreement point for PM, multiple buyers, and other extensions. Managerial implications: This paper delivers insights on when price matching in supply chain wholesale price negotiation can benefit a seller, buyers, consumers, and society in a variety of scenarios. It advocates how managers can use PM to their own advantages and provides rationale to decision makers for policy regulations regarding wholesale pricing.


Author(s):  
Ju Myung Song ◽  
Yao Zhao

Problem definition: We study the coordination of an E-commerce supply chain between online sellers and third party shippers to meet random demand surges, induced by, for instance, online shopping holidays. Academic/practical relevance: Motivated by the challenge of meeting the unpredictable demand surges in E-commerce, we study shipping contracts and supply chain coordination between online sellers and third party shippers in a novel model taking into account the unique features of the shipping industry. Methodology: We compare two shipping contracts: the risk penalty (proposed by UPS) and the flat rate (used by FedEx), and analyze their impact on the seller, the shipper, and the supply chain. Results: Under information symmetry, the sophisticated risk penalty contract is no better than the simple flat rate contract for the shipper, against common belief. Although both the risk penalty and the flat rate can coordinate the supply chain, the risk penalty does so only if the shipper makes zero profit, but the flat rate can provide a positive profit for both. These results represent a new form of double marginalization and risk-sharing, in sharp contrast to the well-known literature on the classic supplier-retailer supply chain, where risk-sharing contracts (similar to the risk penalty) can bring benefits to all parties, but the single wholesale price contract (similar to the flat rate) can achieve supply chain coordination only when the supplier makes zero profit. We also find that only the online seller, but not the shipper, has the motivation to vertically integrate the seller-shipper supply chain. Under information asymmetry, however, the risk penalty brings more benefit to the shipper than the flat rate, but hurts the seller and the supply chain. Managerial implications: Our results imply that information plays an important role in the shipper’s choices of shipping contracts. Under information symmetry, the risk penalty is unnecessarily complex because the simple flat rate is as good as the risk penalty for the shipper; moreover, it is better for the seller-shipper coordination. However, under information asymmetry, the shipper faces additional shipping risk that can be offset by the extra flexibility of the risk penalty. Our study also explains and supports the recent practice of online sellers (e.g., Amazon.com and JD.com), but not shippers, to vertically integrate the supply chain by consistently expanding their shipping capabilities.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehab A. Bazan

A consignment stock is a type of supply-chain coordination for the management of supply-chains in which there is a joint vendor and buyer policy that is mainly focused on having the vendor manage the buyer's inventory. This thesis aims to investigate the consignment stock strategy in a single-vendor single-buyer supply-chain context considering imperfect items that may be produced from an imperfect production process. It develops a flexible mathematical model that allows for managerial decisions with regards to imperfect items and seeks to minimize costs (maximize profits) of the supply-chain. Such managerial decisions include scrapping items at a cost, selling them for a marginal profit to a secondary market, applying re-work, and/or applying minor setups to restore the production process. Results show that the introduction of imperfect items increases the batch size and reduces the number of shipments. Minor setups were shown to reduce cost, increase the number of shipments and reduce its size.


Author(s):  
Tor Schoenmeyr ◽  
Stephen C. Graves

Problem definition: We use the guaranteed service (GS) framework to investigate how to coordinate a multiechelon supply chain when two self-interested parties control different parts of the supply chain. For purposes of supply chain planning, we assume that each stage in a supply chain operates with a local base-stock policy and can provide guaranteed service to its customers, as long as the customer demand falls within certain bounds. Academic/practical relevance: The GS framework for supply chain inventory optimization has been deployed successfully in multiple industrial contexts with centralized control. In this paper, we show how to apply this framework to achieve coordination in a decentralized setting in which two parties control different parts of the supply chain. Methodology: The primary methodology is the analysis of a multiechelon supply chain under the assumptions of the GS model. Results: We find that the GS framework is naturally well suited for this decentralized decision making, and we propose a specific contract structure that facilitates such relationships. This contract is incentive compatible and has several other desirable properties. Under assumptions of complete and incomplete information, a reasonable negotiation process should lead the parties to contract terms that coordinate the supply chain. The contract is simpler than contracts proposed for coordination in the stochastic service (SS) framework. We also highlight the role of markup on the holding costs and some of the difficulties that this might cause in coordinating a decentralized supply chain. Managerial implications: The value from the paper is to show that a simple contract coordinates the chain when both parties plan with a GS model and framework; hence, we provide more evidence for the utility of this model. Furthermore, the simple coordinating contract matches reasonably well with practice; we observe that the most common contract terms include a per-unit wholesale price (possibly with a minimum order quantity and/or quantity discounts), along with a service time from order placement until delivery or until ready to ship. We also observe that firms need to pay a higher price if they want better service. What may differ from practice is the contract provision of a demand bound; our contract specifies that the supplier will provide GS as long as the buyer’s order are within the agreed on demand bound. This provision is essential so that each party can apply the GS framework for planning their supply chain. Of course, contracts have many other provisions for handling exceptions. Nevertheless, our research provides some validation for the GS model and the contracting practices we observe in practice.


Author(s):  
Alejandra Gomez-Padilla

In this document it is analyzed the importance of contracts for coordination between two companies in a supply chain. In the studied situation, one company, or supplier, supplies one product to the other company, who is a retailer. The companies are going to coordinate by two types of decisions: economic (concerning prices fixed on a contract), and physical exchange (concerning the inventory to be held). Two types of contracts will be presented: one contract with a simple pricing scheme and two contracts with inventory holding cost shared among the companies of the supply chain. The objective is to show that contracts with inventory holding cost share allow the two companies to efficiently coordinate the chain they form.


Mathematics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 586
Author(s):  
Wei Liu ◽  
Shiji Song ◽  
Ying Qiao ◽  
Han Zhao

This paper studies the supply chain coordination where the retailer is loss-averse, and a combined buyback and quantity flexibility contract is introduced. The loss-averse retailer’s objective is to maximize the Conditional Value-at-Risk of utility. It is shown the combined contract can coordinate the chain and a unique coordinating wholesale price exists if the confidence level is below a threshold. Moreover, the retailer’s optimal order quantity, expected utility and coordinating wholesale price are decreasing in loss aversion and confidence levels, respectively. We also find that when the contract parameters are restricted, the combined contract may coordinate the supply chain even though neither of its component contracts coordinate the chain.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weihua Liu ◽  
Shuqing Wang ◽  
Donglei Zhu

This paper introduces the parameter of supply chain control power into existing supply chain coordination models and explores the impacts of control power on the profits of manufacturer, retailer, and the overall supply chain under four modes of decision-making, including the decentralized decision-making dominated by manufacturer, the decentralized decision-making dominated by retailer, centralized decision-making, and Nash negotiation decision-making. Some significant conclusions are obtained. Firstly, supply chain control power does have great impact on the supply chain profits. The profit of the whole supply chain with centralized decision-making is higher than those of the other three modes, while the overall profit of supply chain with decentralized decision-making is superior to the profit when retailer and manufacturer dominate the supply chain together. Secondly, with decentralized decision-making, for manufacturer and retailer, it is beneficial to gain the control powers of the supply chain; however, control power has an optimal value, not the bigger, the better. Thirdly, under certain circumstances, order quantity will increase and the wholesale price will decrease when control power is transferred from manufacturer to retailer. In this case, the total profit of supply chain dominated by retailer will be greater than that dominated by manufacturer.


Complexity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xigang Yuan ◽  
Xiaoqing Zhang ◽  
Dalin Zhang

Based on dynamic game theory and the principal-agent theory, this paper examined different government subsidy strategies in green supply chain management. Assuming that the retailer’s level of selling effort involved asymmetric information, this study analyzed the impact of different government subsidy strategies on the wholesale price, the product greenness level, retail price, the level of selling effort, the manufacturer’s profit, and the retailer’s profit. The results showed that (1) the government’s subsidy strategy can effectively not only improve the product greenness level but also increase the profits of an enterprise in a green supply chain, which helps the retailer to enhance their selling effort; (2) regardless of whether the retailer’s level of selling effort was high or low, as the government’s subsidy coefficient increased, the wholesale price continued to decrease, and the product greenness level and retailer’s selling effort level also increased.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 165-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Gilbert

E-book sales surged after Amazon introduced the Kindle e-reader at the end of 2007 and accounted for about one quarter of all trade book sales by the end of 2013. Amazon's aggressive (low) pricing of e-books led to allegations that e-books were bankrupting brick and mortar book booksellers. Amazon's commanding position as a bookseller also raises concerns about monopoly power, and publishers are concerned about Amazon's power to displace them in the book value chain. I find little evidence that e-books are primarily responsible for the decline of independent booksellers. I also conclude that entry barriers are not sufficient to allow Amazon to set monopoly prices. Publishers are at risk from Amazon's monopsony (buyer) power and so sought “agency” pricing in an effort to raise the price of ebooks, promote retail competition, and reduce Amazon's influence as an e-retailer. (In the agency pricing model, the publisher specifies the retail price with a commission for the retailer. In a traditional, “wholesale” pricing model, publishers sell a book to retailers at a wholesale price and retailers set the retail price.) Although agency pricing was challenged by the Department of Justice, it may yet prevail in some form as an equilibrium pricing model for e-book sales.


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