品牌权益影响下的双渠道供应链定价决策及协调研究

针对一个制造商开通直销渠道销售产品与零售商的价格竞争问题,文章基于制造商与零售商共享品牌权益的视角,研究在制造商双渠道供应链结构中,价格和品牌权益同时作用下的双渠道供应链定价决策,分别分析在集中决策下和分散决策下,品牌权益对两种渠道价格和利润的影响。研究发现：在集中决策下,两种渠道的价格、利润与品牌权益成正相关;在分散决策下,当品牌权益超过一定临界值时,其对制造商直销渠道的价格和制造商总利润的影响大于零售商。鉴于品牌权益对供应链定价决策的重要影响,文章建立制造商和零售商之间的品牌权益成本共担机制,并通过数值仿真分析发现,当实施品牌权益成本共担机制时,制造商和零售商的销售价格和利润均是最优的。因此,零售商应加强与制造商的互动,共同创造高品牌权益的同时,也应共同分享高品牌权益。     

Relational Resources in Interorganizational Exchange: The Effects of Trade Equity and Brand Equity

This research examines the effects of two key relational resources in relationships between retailers and national brand manufacturers. We introduce the new concept of trade equity, defined here as the value that accrues to a firm from being known in a trading network as a trustworthy trading partner, to explore the relational resources that are inherent in a firm’s ties with trading partners. We consider brand equity to represent relational resources that are located in a firm’s relational ties with end consumers. Based on data collected in a survey of 797 home appliance retailers, results show that a manufacturer’s trade equity and brand equity have differential effects on the retailer’s dependence and commitment to the manufacturer. Findings show that a manufacturer’s brand equity strengthens the effect of its trade equity on the retailer’s dependence and weakens the effect on the retailer’s commitment.     

The Power of Innovativeness in Manufacturer–Retailer Relationships

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Retailers often challenge manufacturers through aggressive store brand policies and severe listing constraints. This study investigates manufacturer innovativeness as a managerial lever to shift the power balance between manufacturers and retailers.

Methodology/approach: Using data from 277 senior managers of Swiss and German consumer goods manufacturers and analyzing these data with structural equation modelling, the authors test hypotheses about the impact of manufacturer innovativeness on manufacturer–retailer relationship characteristics (i.e., retailer dependency, store brand aggressiveness, and listing constraints).

Findings: The study demonstrates that manufacturer innovativeness enhances retailer dependency, which in turn positively affects overall manufacturer performance. This relationship can be explained further: By increasing retailer dependency, manufacturers suppress retailers’ store brand aggressiveness and attenuate retailers’ listing constraints. Store brand aggressiveness affects overall manufacturer performance through listing constraints.

Research implications: Identifying levers such as innovativeness that assist manufacturers in fostering their power over retailers provides a new mode for understanding how manufacturers can influence the balance of power between manufacturers and retailers. The study provides support for the approach/inhibition theory of power on the inter-organizational level. Organizations with increased power are assumed to have approach-related tendencies and act in goal-consistent manner, whereas organizations with reduced power are assumed to develop the tendency to pursue inhibition-related actions, e.g., attending to threats. Furthermore, this study identifies channel relationship characteristics such as retailer dependency as a mediating path between manufacturer innovativeness and performance.

Practical implications: Managers need to strengthen the firm’s innovative capacity to enhance the performance of their companies. By developing the capability to provide radical innovations, manufacturers are able to enhance their performance not only directly but also indirectly by strengthening the manufacturer’s position with regard to retailers. This study underscores the relevance of innovativeness for strengthening the manufacturer’s position in its relationship with retailers that avoids problems with aggressive store brands and constrained listing conditions.

Originality/value/contribution: This study proposes manufacturer innovativeness as a managerial lever to shift the power balance between manufacturers and retailers.     

Integrative effects of firms' price and endorsement strategies on consumers' loyalty intention

This research examines the effects of price and brand endorsement that are adopted by firms from a consumer-based viewpoint, and provides practical brand management discussions as a reference for both manufacturer brands and retail store brands. According to the findings, manufacturer brands support high prices and boost those vivid impressions which are helpful in engendering consumer loyalty intention. Without a careful evaluation process, a brand-endorsing strategy may prove detrimental to the manufacturer. Retail store brands follow distinct pricing policies and carry out brand-endorsed strategies. Price/endorsement stimuli influence consumer brand loyalty through the partial mediating effect of brand impression. Manufacturers and retailers could define appropriate price premiums on products with a potential for a manufacturer–retailer brand co-branding as identified by market research, thus increasing the sales of both.     

Driving In-Role and Extra-Role Brand Performance among Retail Frontline Salespeople: Antecedents and the Moderating Role of Customer Orientation

The organizational frontline in retail represents the frontline for an entire supply chain. This channel structure distances the branded supplier from the end consumer and makes the supplier dependent on a retail frontline salesperson that (1) it does not control and (2) also represents competing brands. This study reveals mechanisms that the supplier may use to influence retail frontline salespeople. We demonstrate the importance of consumer marketing programs and supplier representatives in building brand identification between the manufacturer’s brand and the retail frontline employee that translates into increased brand sales, while also revealing the role of rewards programs in stimulating brand-specific extra-role behaviors. Interestingly, retail frontline customer orientation, built by the retailer, diminishes the effect of brand extra-role behaviors toward the focal brand on the focal brand’s sales, providing an informal control mechanism for retailers to protect its objectives. The results of this study have powerful ramifications for both retailers and suppliers in achieving both their mutual, and sometimes differing, objectives related to the retail frontline.     

Retailers with traits of consumer: Exploring the existence and antecedents of brand loyalty in small unorganized retailers

Retail in most emerging countries, like India, is dominated by the informal sector consisting of small unorganized retailers and marketers selling through them desperately want to win them over because it can be a powerful competitive advantage in these markets.Small unorganized retail store is a unique setting because most of these stores are owned and managed by individual proprietors who are neither schooled in systematic business decision making and nor have access to professional expertise and scientific tools to assist in taking business decisions in a systematic way. With loads of decisions to be made by this individual, it can be assumed that heuristics and common sense drive a lot of their business decisions and this makes them very similar to the decision making done by the end consumers, who also engage in buying decisions but are not scientific in their approach.Based on this similarity, this study attempts to explore a simple but profound question that like individual consumers, do these retail customers’ buying decisions also get affected by brand loyalty? In that direction, the study assesses the role of three variables - salesperson quality, self-experience with the brand and perceived company support, for predicting brand loyalty in small unorganized retailers.Using Structured Equation Modelling on data collected from 543 retailers, the proposed hypothesized paths have been tested. The results strongly support the proposition made. This study extends the application of the existing attitudinal – behavioural framework of brand loyalty to retailers and puts forward a vital and a unique way for marketers to get these retailers on-board and work as an influencer to push their brand.     

The Impact of a Flagship vs. a Brand Store on Brand Attitude,Brand Attachment and Brand Equity

How can flagships and brand stores contribute to building brands? We inquire about the relationships between store image, brand experience, brand attitude, brand attachment and brand equity using store intercepts. We find that flagships, due to the powerful brand experiences they allow, have a stronger impact on brand attitude, brand attachment and brand equity compared to brand stores. We provide retail marketers with avenues to offer increased in-store brand experiences by appealing to consumers’ emotions, senses, behaviors, and cognition.     

Why Are Themed Brandstores So Powerful? Retail Brand Ideology at American Girl Place

Although there is growing interest in themed brandstores, we still know very little about the source of these retail environments’ power to affect consumers profoundly. Utilizing an ethnographic study of American Girl Place, a culturally rich and highly successful retail environment, we find that effective retailing in these contexts is an intensely ideological affair. In our participant-observation of, and on-site interviews with, consumers at American Girl Place we find that the ideology of the brand manifests powerfully through a variety of different and distinct areas within the store: the Museum, the Library, the Café, the Salon, the Theater, and the Photo Studio. Ideological expression is central to each of these places. Tracking the influence of brand ideology through consumers’ retail experiences, we theorize about the centrality of retail place in ideological branding. Although the confluence of ideology and retailing has been referenced in prior research, this paper focuses on and systematically develops the theoretical interconnection between the two. The physical immediacy of themed brandstore experience acts as a quilting point that links together related cultural concepts into a strong retail brand ideology. The implications of this theory draw our attention to ideological and morally-bound retail brand expressions, emphasize the importance of a variety of retail formats within a single store, and provide practical guidelines for retailers eager to build successful brands of their own.     

The relationship between store image and store brand equity: A conceptual framework and evidence from hypermarkets

Retailers are making considerable efforts to improve their brand management. The challenge they face, however, is how best to integrate coherently their stores, as brands, and their various distributor brands (store brands, private labels, etc.), in order to increase their brand equity and offer the market differential value that will stimulate customer loyalty. From this perspective, it is crucial for retailers to investigate the relationship between the store and their own brands. This study proposes two theoretical models showing the mechanism whereby store image helps increase the equity of a specific type of distributor brand (the store brand). The approach used in this analysis is based, on the one hand, on defining brand equity through its components, using the model in Aaker (1991), and on the other, on including (social and strategic) corporate dimensions in measuring store image. The empirical research made in the hypermarket sector in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa backs the majority of the proposed hypotheses. The results show that store image can be used by retailers to influence all components of store brand equity, essentially through its commercial and strategic dimension. This research is intended to address the clear lack of research on store brand equity.     

The Retailer's Perspective on the Link Between Logistical Resources and Perceived Customer Loyalty to Manufacturer Brands

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationships between logistics and brand‐related resources, and assess their impact on the retailer's perceptions of customer loyalty to manufacturer brands. On the basis of theoretical underpinnings of the resource‐based view, this study explores the relationships among four main variables: (1) variety of collaborative logistics technologies shared between retailers and manufacturers, (2) manufacturer's logistics operations quality provided to retailers, (3) retailer's brand differentiation orientation, and (4) retailer's perceptions of customers loyalty to manufacturer brands. An online survey was conducted on 313 senior marketing and supply chain managers from retailer firms. The results of the structural equation analysis support a mediated relationship between logistical resources and perceived loyalty to manufacturer brands. The retailers believe that shared logistics technologies enable manufacturers and retailers to offer higher levels of availability and visibility of preferred brands to their end‐user customers. In turn, the end‐users become more confident with their decisions to repurchase the same brand offerings.     

Analyzing the effects of private-label supplier disclosure on retailer image

Private-label retailers' disclosures of dual manufacturing agreements—that is, agreements with manufacturers that produce both their own national brands and private labels—can affect the images associated with the retailers. In this study, an experiment reveals moderating effects on retailer images, according to the images of both the national brand manufacturers and the retailers; and also depending on the brand equity of the private label. A low-image retailer's disclosure that a national brand manufacturer supplies its private label causes consumers to perceive that the retailer has a higher image. However, the positive effects of private label supplier disclosure on the retailer's image are weaker when the private label enjoys high equity.     

Dynamic cooperative promotion in the presence of consumer reference effect with competing retailers

This paper studies the cooperative promotion problem in the presence of the promotion reference effect. We consider retailer price-reduction promotion activities that enhance their sales but may impair brand image for the manufacturer. Moreover, because frequently used promotion induces a promotion reference effect on customers, we investigate how the promotion reference effect influences cooperative control strategies. We do so by examining the context in a supply chain with one leading manufacturer and two competing retailers, where the manufacturer implements a cooperative promotion program for the retailers. We use differential game models vis-a-vis dynamic promotion control strategies and cooperative promotion strategies under the scenario of existence and non-existence of the reference effect. Findings show that the presence of a promotion reference effect increases profit for the manufacturer but generates reduced profit for the retailers. We also find that the manufacturer augments the level of national brand advertising when incorporating the reference effect, and retailers raise (lower) their degree of promotion when the negative effect is low (high).     

The delisting of products by retail buyers

The main aim of the research reported here is to identify any patterns in the delisting behaviour of retail buyers, where a delisted product is defined as one which is removed from sale by a retailer but which continues to be sold by other retailers. The influence of the retail buyer in the marketing of consumer products has become ever more significant. Much academic research into retail buying has aimed at identifying criteria that affect purchasing decisions but few generalizable findings have emerged due to the context‐specific nature of such decision making. In this research a specific context is chosen, that of the de‐selection or delisting of products, a topic that has received little attention to date.

The results of interviews with 125 buyers, working for large and small retailers, on their reasons for 290 examples of product delistings are reported. The influence of more detailed contextual variables such as the buyer's age, experience and qualification, the product type, and the source of the product are examined together with a number of reasons for delisting the product. Many of these contextual variables, particularly the size of the retail business and whether the buyer had experience of working in a retail outlet, correlated widely with the relative importance of decision variables. Buyers working for smaller retailers tended to delist because of low sales volumes. Nett profitability, the reason why products should be delisted, was rarely cited as a major criterion.

More detailed analysis of the data set using factor and cluster analysis revealed that delisting decisions could be categorized into two types, each defined by combinations of contextual and decision variables. The most important variables in distinguishing between the two types of decisions were the buyer's age and experience as a buyer (contextual variables) and the decision criteria of nett margin being too low or the selling price to the retailer being too high. Younger, less experienced buyers were more likely to delist products because of low nett margins and high buying prices. Older, more experienced buyers were likely to delist for reasons other than these. The implications for retailers and for their suppliers of both the major and minor findings from the study are discussed.     

Empirical investigation of channel reactions to brand introductions

We investigate how incumbent manufacturers and retailers alter their pricing behavior in response to new product introduction. In performing our analysis, we need to be cognizant of the fact that the observed price changes can be due to entry-induced changes in a) demand conditions or b) costs or, on the other hand, to the competitive behavior of c) manufacturers and/or d) the retailer. In order to separate these four changes, we posit that manufacturer and retailer pricing is an outcome of maximizing a combination of shares and profits. This enhanced objective function allows us to measure competitive conduct benchmarked as less or more competitive than under the Bertrand-Nash framework. Our empirical analysis is based on the toothpaste category for the time period January 1993–February 1995. During this period, there were three brand introductions in two rounds of entry. Using the estimates from the demand and the supply model, we compute the changes in the retail and wholesale prices that are attributable to changes in demand conditions, manufacturer and retailer competitive conduct, and cost changes. These results support our conjecture that inferring the change in conduct solely based on a change in observed prices is likely to be erroneous. For the first new brand entry, we find that the brand introduction did not significantly increase competition between manufacturers. As a result, the balance of channel power between the manufacturers and the retailers remained unaltered. Both retailer and manufacturer profit margins increased after the first entry. However, subsequent to the second entry, retailer share of channel profits increased at the expense of the manufacturers; manufacturers even saw a decline in their absolute profit margins. We believe that this research will provide insight for manufacturers and retailers regarding how the various channel participants are likely to react to new product introduction. Furthermore, policymakers interested in understanding competitive reactions to new product introduction should find this research useful.     

自有品牌对连锁商业品牌战略的影响分析

零售商实施品牌战略是制造商和零售商之间垂直竞争加剧的产物,也是应对零售商之间水平竞争的需要.零售商品牌战略包括企业品牌和商品及服务品牌两个层次.作为零售商商品品牌的重要内容,自有品牌通过企业品牌和制造商品牌两个路径对零售企业的品牌战略产生影响.为保证品牌战略的有效实施,零售企业必须处理好业态选择、品类管理、品牌策略的管理等.     

An evolutionary game theoretic model for analyzing retailers’ behavior when introducing economy and premium private labels

The significant growth of Private Labels (PLs) has led to a growing competition between National Brand (NB) manufacturers, on the one hand, and retailers, on the other; while manufacturers strive to achieve enhanced customer loyalty through such measures as innovation and advertising, retailers focus their efforts on offering high-quality products. This paper considers for the first time a supply chain consisting of one NB manufacturer and a population of retailers under two scenarios. In the first, each retailer sells NB and chooses either to introduce an Economy Private Label (EPL) or not. In the second scenario, each retailer chooses either to introduce a Premium Private Label (PPL) or not. To solve the problem, an evolutionary game is introduced and the retailers’ behavior is analyzed. Using two numerical examples, parametric analysis and managerial insights are also provided. It is found that the entire population chooses the strategy of introducing a private label (EPL or PPL) and that this strategy yields greater profits for both the manufacturer and the retailers than other strategy profiles might do. In addition, it is shown that both the retailers and the manufacturer gain more profits by introducing a PPL rather than an EPL.     

Store Brand Quality and Retailer’s Product Line Design

This study analyzes a retailer’s store brand quality decision in vertically differentiated product categories. We analyze a game theoretic model composed of one or two national brand manufacturers and a retailer, who strategically chooses the quality level(s) of its store brand(s) relative to the well-established national brand position(s) to maximize its category profit. Our analysis reveals that the nature of a retailer’s store brand quality positioning is quite different from the manufacturer’s national brand positioning decision, and that the best position for a store brand is not “as close to a national brand as possible” as previous studies suggest. Instead, the optimal quality position of each store brand is remarkably sensitive to the distribution of consumers’ willingness-to-pay. In particular, the relative proportions of quality sensitive consumers and price sensitive consumers determine the balance of three key strategic forces — the market expansion force, the retail margin force, and the consumer profitability force, leading to different optimal product line designs for store brands across different category environments. Interestingly, against multiple incumbent national brands, the retailer’s optimal product line design includes a store brand positioned at the highest quality level in the category only if most consumers are moderately quality conscious. We also analyze the implications of national brands’ brand equity for retailers’ store brand strategy.     

零售商品牌资产管理策略体系构建——基于多维理论视角的探讨

零售商品牌资产的管理和创建是零售企业获取持续竞争优势的关键,但关于零售商品牌资产管理策略的理论指导并不系统和丰富。因此,本文从零售商品牌营销管理、顾客情绪管理、顾客体验管理、顾客关系管理、顾客忠诚管理5个多维理论视角,对零售商品牌资产管理的策略体系进行了构建,以期为零售商品牌资产的创建过程和途径提供丰富的管理视野与思路。     

Managing advertising investments in marketing channels

This paper investigates how should manufacturers optimally allocate resources to retailer-initiated (retailer) advertising through cooperative advertising programs and own (manufacturer) advertising in a bilateral monopoly. Retailer advertising stimulates immediate sales but may also harm long-term (post-advertising) demand, whereas manufacturer advertising aims at building brand equity and stimulates both immediate and long-term sales. A game-theoretic model in which a manufacturer and a retailer set pricing and advertising decisions over a two-period planning horizon is developed to account for the differences between manufacturer and retailer advertising. We characterize equilibrium solutions for four advertising scenarios for the manufacturer, ranging from no investment in any advertising activity to undertaking own advertising and supporting retailer advertising simultaneously. Comparing the two players’ equilibrium strategies and profits across these scenarios, we find that manufacturers should avoid offering exclusively cooperative advertising programs to retailers. When retailer advertising positively influences long-term sales, manufacturers should offer cooperative advertising supports to retailers in addition to undertaking their own advertising. When retailer advertising negatively affects long-term sales, manufacturers can still undertake own advertising and offer cooperative advertising under certain conditions. However, if these conditions are not met, focusing exclusively on own advertising is their best advertising strategy. Retailers also prefer scenarios in which manufacturers advertise, but may choose not to participate in manufacturers’ cooperative advertising programs. This leads to suboptimal outcomes if cooperative advertising programs are not enhanced by additional incentives (e.g., side payments or other services).     

Managing a Global Retail Brand in Different Markets: Meta-Analyses of Customer Responses to Service Encounters

This study investigates how retailers can leverage their brand to shape customers’ satisfaction with service encounters. It develops and tests hypotheses about how brand, store, and consumer factors moderate customer responses to experience clues during retail service encounters. Six meta-regression analyses synthesize and compare results from 842 satisfaction equations describing customers’ encounters with a global retailer operating 400 stores in 32 countries. The results show how customers weigh their perceptions of service encounters differently depending on brand, store, and consumer factors. In markets where customers believe the retailer has high holistic brand quality, they place less weight on experience clues within the store. In markets where customers believe the retailer’s service brand promise, they place more weight on in-store experience clues. In markets where the retailer promises utilitarian value, customers weigh functional experience clues more heavily. In markets with an online purchasing channel, the effect of experience clues common to offline and online store environments is magnified, and unique clues are diminished. In addition, customers heavily weigh experience clues that fit their goals. In general, retail success factors include high brand quality (which makes customers more forgiving), a service brand promise that is mirrored in the store image (which makes customers attend to the experience clues aligned with them), and the careful monitoring and managing of retail touchpoints (to customize experience clues to each market). In this way, retailers can use customer-based strategies to effectively design and manage their global retail brand in different markets.