A centralized/decentralized design of a full return contract for a risk-free manufacturer and a risk-neutral retailer under partial information sharing

We consider the design of full return contract in a simple supply chain with a risk-free manufacturer and a risk-neutral retailer. In this problem, the ordering quantity and the rebate price for unsold products are determined by the retailer and the manufacturer, respectively. We propose an optimal solution procedure in centralized and decentralized decision making environments considering when the information sharing among the retailer and the manufacturer is partial. We provide numerical examples to explain the proposed solution procedures.     

Strategic information sharing between competing retailers in a supply chain with endogenous wholesale price

This paper introduces a new motivation for information sharing in decentralized supply chains—as a mechanism to achieve truthful information sharing and to reduce signaling costs. We study a two-echelon supply chain with one manufacturer selling a homogenous product to n price-setting competing retailers. Each retailer has access to private information about the potential market demand, and the retailers have an ex-ante incentive to share this information with each other and to conceal the information from the manufacturer. However, without a mechanism that induces the retailers to truthful information exchange as their strategic choice, no information can be exchanged via pure communication (cheap talk). To overcome this obstacle, two signaling games are analyzed: in the first game, information is shared truthfully among the retailers; in the second game, information is also shared truthfully with the manufacturer. We show that under some conditions sharing information with the manufacturer results in a higher profit for the retailers.     

National brand's local advertising and wholesale-price incentive under prior versus no prior information

We study the context of one private label (PL) competing against one national brand (NB) through a unique retailer. We propose a novel utility-demand function that includes the consumer's brand valuation, the retail prices, and the brands' qualities. We investigate the effect of the NB local advertising strategy on supply chain players' profits when either one of the players supports the advertising. Also, we explore the role of prior information about the manufacturer's incentive function on supply chain players' behaviors. We show that although the support for advertising from either the manufacturer or the retailer is Pareto improving, the manufacturer prefers to incite the retailer to invest in local NB advertising through profit sharing instead of using its money to counter the threat of the PL. Furthermore, we also show that the wholesale price incentive motivating the retailer to invest further in advertising is not preferred as expected, and all supply chain players are better off without prior information about the manufacturer's behavior in the context of branding competition and advertising-level dependent incentive.     

政府补贴下的三级低碳供应链减排博弈研究

本文分别构建了政府补贴下,供应链上企业单独减排、供应商对制造商碳减排成本进行分担、供应商和零售商均对制造商碳减排成本进行分担3种减排模型,求解得到不同减排模式下,包括成本分担率和单位减排量在内的供应链最优决策。研究发现,政府补贴率的提升反而使成本分担率降低。通过博弈分析及算例验证得出：在供应链上三方企业联合减排下,即供应商和零售商都对制造商的碳减排研发提供资金支持时,单位产品的减排量及各企业利润达到最大,仅供应商对制造商碳减排成本分担时次之, 供应链上企业单独减排时最小, 但仅供应商一方对制造商的碳减排成本进行分担时的成本分担率,比其与零售商同时分担时的要大。这些结论为政府确立合适的补贴方案及供应链上企业减排策略的制定提供了理论依据。     

奖惩机制下回收投资成本分担对闭环供应链决策的影响研究

为了探讨奖惩机制下制造商与回收商分担固定回收投资成本对闭环供应链决策的影响,利用博弈论建立了由制造商、回收商和消费者构成的闭环供应链模型。通过对比分析及仿真得出各决策变量基于制造商分担比例及奖惩力度的变化。研究表明：仅考虑制造商分担回收投资成本、奖惩机制下制造商分担回收投资成本均能有效提高回收率,降低零售价,提高产品需求量,且第二种机制作用效果更佳。适当的分担比例和奖惩力度可以提高制造商和零售商的利润。因此,在合理的奖惩力度下制造商分担一定的回收投资成本时,闭环供应链各成员能实现互利共赢。     

Mobile channel and channel coordination under different supply chain contexts

The paper proposes different supply chain contexts where one manufacturer sells the same product to two retailers, one traditional and one online. The first context is when two retailers are distinct entities and the second context is when a dominant manufacturer owns and controls the traditional retailer. In each context, we study a no cooperation scenario versus various cooperation strategies (namely the minimum pricing strategy, the whole channel price, and the revenue sharing cooperation). Besides, we investigate the use of a dual channel by the online retailer via a mobile channel and a computer channel. The online retailer could use the same price online or a price differentiation (called also personalized pricing) depending on where the purchase is done. Our results show the crucial role of the product compatibility to the web and the mobile baseline incremental sales in influencing the performance of each channel member.     

Role of forecast effort on supply chain profitability under various information sharing scenarios

In this paper, we consider a manufacturer who sells a product to a retailer in a single selling season. Each party obtains a forecast of the market demand independent of each other. We study three different forecast scenarios: Non-Information Sharing, Information Sharing, and Retailer Forecasting cases. In the first scenario, both parties make their forecasts, but do not share the information with the other firm. In the second scenario, they share the information with each other, while in the last scenario, only the retailer makes the forecast, and shares it with the manufacturer. Noting that the forecast accuracy comes at a cost, we derive the optimal price and forecast accuracy level for each of the three cases. We then compare the optimal policies of the three cases and derive conditions under which the two parties should share information with each other. Results of extensive numerical experimentation are also presented.     

Trade promotion mode choice and information sharing in fashion retail supply chains

Trade promotion has a significant impact on the retail business, particularly in the fashion sectors. Manufacturers have traditionally been concerned with the inefficiency of trade promotion due to the low pass-through rate of the trade deals from retailers to customers. The scan-back (SB) trade deal, which monitors a retailer's sales via an IT system, benefits the manufacturer, but may or may not benefit the retailer. We provide insight into when a retailer in a two-stage supply chain has incentive to accept the SB trade deal. We show that (1) the manufacturer and the entire supply chain can always benefit from the SB trade deal while the retailer benefits only under some conditions, and that (2) both the retailer and the manufacturer can benefit from the SB trade deal if the SB deal is accompanied by a buyback (BB) contract. We examine the effect of a retailer's confidential pass-through rate on both the retailer's and the manufacturer's incentives to use the SB trade deal.     

Valuable strategy and firm performance in the O2O competition

When the manufacturer opens an online channel to compete with its traditional retailer, what valuable strategy can be utilized to alleviate the O2O (online to offline) competition and conflict and improve the performances of all channel members? Our research addresses this important question by initiating an innovative strategy considering the retailer's sales effort and the manufacturer's support in local advertising simultaneously in a manufacturer – retailer O2O supply chain. Our results show that although the retailer's sales effort helps improve the channel coordination and leads to a win-win solution for both the manufacturer and the retailer, investing in both the retailer's sales effort and manufacturer's support in local advertising is a more effective strategy to be employed to coordinate the O2O distribution and achieve higher profits for all parties in the manufacturer - retailer supply chain. In addition, our results also show that compared to the simultaneous mode, the Stackelberg leader-follower mode provides no competitive advantage to the manufacturer or the retailer when the retailer's sales effort and manufacturer's support in local advertising strategy is implemented to coordinate the O2O distributions.     

基于CVaR的第三方回收闭环供应链的优化与协调

利用条件风险值理论研究了第三方回收闭环供应链的优化与协调问题。在随机需求与收益共享———费用共担契约下,建立了由单个风险规避零售商、单个风险规避制造商和单个风险中性第三方回收商组成的三阶闭环供应链的条件风险值模型和基于条件风险值的最优订购与定价决策模型。在对模型进行分析的基础上,揭示了制造商和零售商的风险规避水平对最优订购量、最优定价、条件风险值及闭环供应链协调性的影响。最后通过一个算例验证了研究结论。     

Short-term financing in a cash-constrained supply chain

In this paper we consider a two-level supply chain with a single retailer and a manufacturer, where both the firms are facing financial constraints and can not produce/order their optimal quantity. Our work shows that a lender who finances the manufacturer has a motivation to finance the retailer as well. Motivated by this, we investigate lender's problem of financing both the firms by making a joint decision on the loan amount and comparing it with the case when lender makes independent decision on loan amount for both the firms. Our numerical study indicates that if one of the firms in the supply chain has sufficiently low cash, joint decision (we refer to it as supply chain financing) may be better not only for the lender but for the retailer and manufacturer as well.     

具有自营平台的制造商与零售商的竞争与合作模型

本文研究了由1个制造商和1个零售商组成的供应链中的竞争与合作定价问题,其中制造商具有平台直销渠道。本文建立了竞争下的Stackelberg博弈模型,并分析了解的唯一性和合理性,然后给出合作定价模型和各渠道的定价策略,结果表明制造商和零售商最优策略是降低线下渠道销售价格而线上平台销售价格不变。通过对比表明供应链合作所增加的收益等于非合作下零售商的收益,并证明了顾客对线下渠道购买偏好越高,合作所增加的收益越大。进一步地,分析了在合作的情况下制造商是否放弃通过平台直销渠道销售商品的问题,并给出双渠道下供应链总利润比单渠道下总利润高的判定条件。最后给出一个算例,对所获得的结论进行验证和补充。     

Coordination in a retailer-led supply chain through option contract

This paper develops a model to study channel coordination and risk sharing in a retailer-led supply chain. Such chains are characterized by a dominant retailer who aims to coordinate the upstream production quantity. We investigate a coordinating contract based on an option with two parameters. An option price is paid by the retailer for each additional unit of product reserved beyond the initial order. An exercise price serves as the unit purchasing price when the retailer sets a second order if realized demand is more than the initial order. A successful coordination needs two conditions. One condition is to maintain a negative correlation between exercise price and option price. Particularly, we draw the functional form. The other is that the firm commitment must be lower than the optimal production quantity in a centralized system. In a risk sharing mechanism, we prove that such a contract brings benefit to each party.     

Impact of demand uncertainty on supply chain cooperation of single-period products

Cooperation is an approach of improving competitive advantages of a supply chain. A two-echelon supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer for a single-period product is studied, and retail-market demand uncertainty is described by coefficient of variation. We develop a cooperation mechanism to address the cooperation and its implementation between the manufacturer and the retailer, two market situations are considered: (i) the wholesale price and the order quantity are decision variables, (ii) the wholesale and the retail prices as well as the order quantity are decision variables. In both market situations, our research shows that: (1) the cooperation mechanism can improve the overall channel profits and the supply chain members’ allocated profits, (2) the described cooperation is conditional on retail-market demand uncertainty: it can be implemented if, and only if, the fluctuation of retail-market demand is relatively small and coefficient of variation of retail-market demand does not exceed an upper bound. Impacts of retail-market demand uncertainty on wholesale price, order quantity and/or retail price have also been investigated through analytical and numerical analyses. Although our research is based on the assumption that the manufacturer dominates the supply chain in the non-cooperative situation, which is not the case for most retailer-driven supply chains, this research is still significant on providing guidelines for practitioners in current China mid-level car market that is similar to situations described in the paper.     

Information sharing and profit allotment based on supply chain cooperation

To maximize customer value created by a supply chain system as a whole, one of the key issues in supply chain management is how to have profit and benefit properly shared between partners in an effective manner of the supply chain integration. In this regard, information sharing between partners plays a rather important role in business process and management integration of the supply chain. The paper focuses on analyzing the value created from information sharing by decreasing inventory level and on investigating the collaborative mechanism of providing incentive to retailer by upstream partner via sharing profit gained information sharing in the context of three-echelon supply chain system. The issue of dealing with the interest conflict between the supply chain as a whole and individual partners is addressed based on information sharing analysis by means of cooperative game approach, a graphic model with three-dimensions is developed to depict the possible cooperative solutions of profit allotment between partners, and a problem solving method addressing how the profit allotment between partners can effectively motivate the partners to be cooperative with each other is presented as well.     

Inducing Cooperation with a Carrot Instead of a Stick

The Supreme Court’s reasoning in Leegin turned on the insight that manufacturers may use resale price maintenance (RPM) for procompetitive purposes. This paper presents a model of manufacturer-retailer interactions that clarifies why, as a rule, retailers and manufacturers are joint beneficiaries of service-inducing RPM. The model identifies factors that determine how RPM-generated benefits are allocated between a manufacturer and its retailers. The paper then shows that manufacturers may use market share discounts (MSD) in lieu of RPM or other vertical restraints to induce retailer performance. The outcomes and efficiency effects that are achieved with RPM can be replicated and usually surpassed if manufacturers substitute MSD for RPM, thereby enabling a manufacturer to retain all incremental profit rather than conceding some of it to retailers.     

A serial supply chain of newsvendor problem with safety stocks under complete and partial information sharing

We consider a supply chain where multiple members are serially connected. The decision is to determine the ordering quantity of a member to the next upstream member in the supply chain. The basic cost model is similar to the newsvendor problem with additional consideration to safety stock. This paper presents optimal approaches for coordination of the supply chain under both complete and partial information sharing in order to maximize the total expected benefit. For complete information sharing we develop an optimal coordination algorithm. For partial information sharing, we propose an optimal coordination algorithm based on the Alternating Direction Method and the Diagonal Quadratic Approximation Method. A numerical example is discussed to show the optimal convergence of ordering quantities and discuss the properties of the proposed algorithms.     

Retailer policy, uncertainty reduction, and supply chain performance

We investigate how the retailer’s inventory policy affects the total cost of a serial supply chain. When the retailer uses the locally optimal (s,S) policy, there is randomness in order time and order quantity to the supplier whereas the supplier sees randomness only in order quantity for the suboptimal (R,T) policy and only in order time for another suboptimal (Q,r) policy. Using an extensive computational study, we find that the suboptimal policies perform better from the total supply chain perspective. The benefit of policy changes is magnified when the retailer costs are low, when the supplier costs are high, and when there is information sharing.     

Customer and retailer rebates under risk aversion

In a supply chain setting, we analyze a manufacturer's customer and retailer rebates, which are sales incentives offered to the end buyers and retailers, respectively. The performance of both rebates is influenced by the retailer's objective and response to the promotion due to his intermediary position in the channel. Earlier studies investigating rebates in distribution channels have traditionally assumed that the retailer is risk neutral with the objective of maximizing expected profits. In our paper, we consider a risk-averse retailer. We formally model risk aversion by adopting the Conditional-Value-at-Risk (CVaR) decision criterion. Using a stochastic and (effective) price dependent demand, we analyze the manufacturer's rebate amount decisions and the retailer's joint inventory and pricing decisions in a game theoretical framework. We provide several structural properties of the objective functions and show monotonicity of the retailer's decisions in the degree of risk aversion. For the case of retailer rebates, we characterize the unique equilibrium, and for the case of customer rebates, we prove the existence of an equilibrium. Using numerical examples, we provide further insights on the impact of risk aversion. For example, given an exogenous wholesale price, we observe a threshold value on the retailer's risk-aversion parameter below (above) which the manufacturer is better off with retailer rebates (customer rebates); implying that the manufacturer's preferred rebate type can be different depending on whether the retailer is risk neutral or sufficiently risk averse.     

Manufacturer's retailer dependence: A private branding perspective

With the recent increase in the power of major retailers through consolidations, the world of brands has divided in two categories: national brands belonging to manufacturers and private brands belonging to retailers. While national brands are well studied in the literature, there is a dearth of studies on private brand phenomenon particularly from a manufacturer's point of view as opposed to that of retailers and consumers. To address this gap, we explore the antecedents and consequences of a manufacturer's private brand retailer dependence with a focus on the manufacturer's relationship with retailers. Drawing on the Resource Dependence Theory and Transaction Cost Economics, we examine various products and market characteristics as potential antecedents of a manufacturer's private brand retailer dependence while adopting private brand sales growth and returns from private brand production as outcomes using a sample of 153 South Korean manufacturers currently involved in private brand production. The results show that the private brand retailer dependence of a manufacturer leads to private brand sales growth directly and returns from private brand production indirectly through private brand sales growth, and has a negative effect on return from private brand production directly. Furthermore, product characteristics, such as product innovativeness through collaboration with retailers and search goods, and market characteristics, such as high retailer power and knowledge specificity of a retailer, increase a manufacturer's private brand retailer dependence and, therefore, private brand sales growth. The theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed at the end.