The Ethics of Slotting: Is this Bribery, Facilitation Marketing or Just Plain Competition?

The practice of manufacturers' payments of fees to retailers for the display and sale of their products has become a common practice. In the grocery retail business, the fees paid by manufacturers are called slotting fees, or a payment made for a slot on the shelf. The same practice is used now in the retail book industry. Large book chains command high fees from publishers for the prominent display of books. Entrepreneur's products are often precluded from stores and markets because slotting fees are prohibitive. The fees are non-uniform and often paid in cash, creating an atmosphere that has already spawned illegal activity on the part of retail executives. This article examines the ethics of slotting fees.     

Assessing Supermarket Product-Line Decisions: The Impact of Slotting Fees

In this paper, I estimate a structural demand model for a product category in a supermarket chain. I use the model to infer manufacturers' side payments to obtain shelf access in the supermarket and I estimate the impact of these fees on product assortment. The results suggest that the supermarket carries some unprofitable products. Instead of eliminating them, it charges slotting fees to the manufacturers of those products. Since the absence of slotting fees would lead the retailer to discontinue some products, this paper argues that forbidding slotting fees would harm consumers. Welfare calculations reveal that product assortment in this market is close to socially optimal.     

超市供应商通道费驱动因素研究——基于上市超市面板数据的分析

本文综合通道费的效率理论和市场势力理论,总结出超市向供应商收取通道费的几个主要驱动因素,并分析其经济原理。在此基础上,选取检验不同驱动因素的指标,采用面板数据的个体固定效应模型对中国上市超市数据进行了实证分析。研究表明:超市的总资产和经营成本对超市的通道费有显著影响,超市向供应商收取通道费的主要驱动因素是其市场势力和转移经营成本的动机。最后,实证研究的结果对通道费的效率理论和市场势力理论都给予了支持,表明这两种理论是不矛盾的。     

法、日对通道费的规制及其对我国的启示

大型零售商向供应商收取通道费所引发的工商之间关系紧张的情况,已经成了我国经济生活中的热点问题。我国的零售发展史相对短得多,因此相对于西方零售业,发展资本不足的问题更体现得淋漓尽致,这就使得我国的大型连锁零售商很看重短期内的盈利,并选择将盈利模式建立在通道费利润的基础上。本文分析了过度收取通道费的危害,并在分析借鉴国外对此问题规制的基础上,提出了我国解决这一问题的对策。     

菜价之殇

一头是菜贱伤农,一头是菜贵伤民,在这一流通怪圈中,谁是真正的赢家?何时出手?何时放手?考验着各方智慧及政府决策的执行力……     

产品质量、议价能力与通道费

零售商通道费的产生机理和福利效应是理论界研究的热点,而零售商现有货架上的在售商品对潜在厂商交易条件的影响却少有研究。文章在货架稀缺的视角下,以包含产品质量的经典效用函数为起点,基于现实中零售商普遍采用的预付费合约和相应商务谈判过程的实际,建立了量化零售商产品质量和议价能力的渠道博弈模型,考察了通道费的产生条件、作用机制和福利效果,并探讨了预付费合约本身的现实基础和例外情况。结果表明：当预付费模式是一种刚性的制度安排时,通道费是否产生取决于零售商的议价能力和现有产品质量,只有议价能力和产品质量都很低的零售商才无法收取通道费;当零售商有能力在预付费模式和买断模式之间选择时,预付费一定实现为通道费,代理费必然不会产生。对生产商而言,通道费迫使低质量厂商退出市场,客观上起到了产品质量筛选的作用。这一筛选机制也决定了消费者福利的损益。     

组织信任氛围对任务绩效的作用途径

This paper explores the mechanism by which trust climate influences individual performance. From the perspective of psychological dynamics, we investigate the relationship among perceptions of organizational climate, motivation and individual behaviors to crystallize how a trustworthy organizational environment favors superior individual performance. 203 employees and their supervisors participated in this study, the results show that trust climate benefits individual performance through fostering psychological safety, which in turn influences individual performance via two mutually complementary pathways, namely ability to focus and organizational learning. Psychological safety is conducive to increasing individual ability to focus and improving job performance. Moreover, it is also instrumental in enhancing individual willingness to learn and experiment with new methods as an effort to achieve superior performance. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed. __________ Translated and revised from Xinli kexue xuebao 心理科学学报 (Acta Psychologica Sinica), 2007, 39(6): 1111–1121     

Strategies to reduce product proliferation

Major problems associated with product proliferation include higher production, inventory, and record-keeping costs; increased expenses associated with trade promotions and slotting fees; added consumer confusion and stress; and increased susceptibility to stockouts. This article describes how a firm can limit product proliferation without incurring reduced sales or lowering consumer loyalty. An effective product proliferation reduction program needs to be based on several principles: resisting the temptation of asking consumers if a greater assortment is required; classifying goods into consumer behavior-based tiers; using interfunctional product pruning teams; practicing mass customization, where appropriate; placing absolute limits on product choice; and implementing effective strategies for product pruning.     

关于通道费的理论研究回顾和思考

目前,国内连锁超市等零售商靠收取通道费实现更大盈利模式,是毋庸讳言的客观事实。供应商为了进入连锁超市而支付一定的通道费,本属于市场经济中正常的交易行为,但一些大型连锁零售企业以各种名目收取不合理的通道费,损害了供应商合法权益,扰乱了市场正常交易秩序,在一定程度上,甚至损害了消费者的合法利益,不利于零售业的健康发展。目前对通道费的研究基本上是单独从经济学或法学分析角度,文章试图从经济学与法学综合分析的视角,探讨通道费问题。首先阐述了通道费的特征,其次回顾了国内外关于通道费的经济学和法学理论研究主要观点,第三部分提出了法学视角分析通道费问题的思路,其中重点分析了对大型连锁零售商滥用相对优势地位收取通道费的行为可以比照滥用市场支配地位进行规制。最后就进一步健全通道费的规制框架提出几点建议,力求寻找出解决通道费问题比较妥当的路径。     

The role of self selection, usage uncertainty and learning in the demand for local telephone service

Telephone services are often characterized by the presence of ‘fixed’ plans, involving only a fixed monthly fee, as well as ‘measured’ plans, with both fixed fees and per-unit charges for usage. Consumers are faced with the decisions of which plan to choose and how much to use the phone and these decisions are not, in general, independent. Due to the presence of a time lag between plan choice and usage decisions, consumers are uncertain about usage at the plan-choice stage. We develop a structural discrete/continuous model of plan choice and usage decisions of consumers that accounts for such uncertainty. Prior research has also found that consumers switch less often from fixed plans to measured plans to gain from potential savings than vice versa. Consumer uncertainty regarding their mean usage levels and different rates of learning by consumers in the two plans is a potential explanation for this phenomenon. We extend our discrete/continuous model to account for consumer learning about their mean usage and estimate different rates of learning for the two types of plans. We estimate our model using data from the 1986 Kentucky local telephone tariff experiment. Even in the absence of any price variation over time, we are able to measure the price elasticities both of usage and of choice of plan. Using our parameter estimates, we simulate the effects of the introduction of a metered plan in a market with only a fixed plan and vice versa, on both firm revenues and consumer surplus. We also find that consumers learn very rapidly if they are on the measured plan but learn very slowly when they are on the fixed plan. We investigate an alternative assumption on the nature of the learning process in which only consumers in the measured plan have an opportunity to learn. We find that our empirical results are robust to this change of specification. We conduct counterfactual simulations to simulate enhanced calling plans from the firm and consumer points of view. Additional simulations to measure the value of information in this category are also carried out. We compute the value of both complete information, where the entire uncertainty about future usage is resolved, as well as that of limited information, where the consumer's uncertainty about mean usage is resolved, but the uncertainty about specific month-to-month usage remains. We find that the value of information is modest. We also find that a large proportion of the value of information is that about the mean usage, with the value of the information about a specific month's usage being relatively small.