Research on retail channel decisions considering consumer’s fairness concern

Online retailing provides alternative shopping channels, where the retail platform can either let manufacturers directly sell to consumers or open a self-operated channel, or even both. Regardless of sales channels, consumers often pay attention to the income gap between themselves and enterprises (named consumer's fairness concern). In this work, we explore how consumers’ fairness concerns affect the optimal decisions of both manufacturer and retail platform under different retail channel modes (single-channel mode and mixed-channel mode). The results show that consumer’s fairness concern has a negative impact on the retail price under low production cost in single-channel mode, while the retail prices in mix-channel mode are jointly determined by consumer’s fairness concern and revenue sharing ratio. Besides, if the market channel mode has not yet formed, the retail platform can choose either a self-operated channel or manufacturer consignment channel, depending on the consumer’s fairness concern level and revenue sharing ratio. By contrast, if the market channel mode has already been formed, the retail platform should make effort to reduce consumer’s fairness concern if only the self-operated channel exists, while maintain consumer’s fairness concern and revenue sharing ratio at a moderate level if there exist mixed channels.

Publisher’s distribution channel selection of print books in a book supply chain with print and e-books

Purpose This paper aims to exam the publisher’s online distribution strategies of print books between a reselling and a marketplace channel with the coexistence of e-book. This study extends the study of channel selection to the content products industry. Design/methodology/approach By constructing a publisher-leader Stackelberg game model, the authors investigate the publisher’s distribution strategies. The retailer holds a digital channel for e-book and reselling and marketplace channels for print books. The authors examine three-channel modes for the print book distribution: a pure reselling channel, a marketplace channel and a hybrid channel. Findings The results reveal that a hybrid channel always dominates a pure marketplace channel from the publisher’s perspective. Then, only when the print book’s margin cost and the marketplace’s slotting fee are not very high, the publisher prefers the hybrid to a pure reselling channel. The authors also found a Pareto zone where the hybrid channel mode improves publisher’s and retailer’s profits. Furthermore, the publisher is less likely to choose the hybrid channel as the acceptance of e-book increases. The authors also examine the situation where a publisher-authorized third-party distributor runs the marketplace channel and found the results still hold. Originality/value This paper fills a theoretical and practical gap for a structured analysis of the content providers’ online distribution channel selection of the physical products and digital products. Different from previous related studies, this study focuses on analyzing physical products’ channel strategies and finds physical products’ cost plays a crucial role in the content provider’s channel decision.

Impact of Retailer’s Vertical and Horizontal Fairness Concerns on Manufacturer’s Online Channel Mode

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.

Near-Infrared Organic Phototransistors with Polymeric Channel/Dielectric/Sensing Triple Layers

A new type of near-infrared (NIR)-sensing organic phototransistor (OPTR) was designed and fabricated by employing a channel/dielectric/sensing (CDS) triple layer structure. The CDS structures were prepared by inserting poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) dielectric layers (DLs) between poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) channel layers and poly[{2,5-bis-(2-octyldodecyl)-3,6-bis-(thien-2-yl)-pyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4-diyl}-co-{2,2′-(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)-5,5′-diyl}] (PODTPPD-BT) top sensing layers. Two different thicknesses of PMMA DLs (20 nm and 50 nm) were applied to understand the effect of DL thickness on the sensing performance of devices. Results showed that the NIR-OPTRs with the CDS structures were operated in a typical n-channel mode with a hole mobility of ca. 0.7~3.2 × 10−4 cm2/Vs in the dark and delivered gradually increased photocurrents upon illumination with an NIR light (905 nm). As the NIR light intensity increased, the threshold voltage was noticeably shifted, and the resulting transfer curves showed a saturation tendency in terms of curve shape. The operation of the NIR-OPTRs with the CDS structures was explained by the sensing mechanism that the excitons generated in the PODTPPD-BT top sensing layers could induce charges (holes) in the P3HT channel layers via the PMMA DLs. The optically modulated and reflected NIR light could be successfully detected by the present NIR-OPTRs with the CDS structures.