Channel Conflict and Coordination in the E‐Commerce Age

A number of factors, including developments in Internet‐based commerce and third‐party logistics, have led many companies to consider engaging in direct sales. Such a company may at once be both a supplier to and a direct competitor of any existing reseller partners (e.g., land‐based retailers), which can result in “channel conflict.” This can have momentous implications for distribution strategy. To generate managerial insights into this important issue, we develop a model that captures key attributes of such a setting, including various sources of inefficiency. We examine these in detail and identify a number of counterintuitive structural properties. For instance, the addition of a direct channel alongside a reseller channel is not necessarily detrimental to the reseller, given the associated adjustment in the manufacturer's pricing. In fact, both parties can benefit. Finally, we examine ways to adjust the manufacturer‐reseller relationship that have been observed in industry. These include changes in wholesale pricing, paying the reseller a commission for diverting customers toward the direct channel, or conceding the demand fulfillment function entirely to the reseller. The latter two schemes could be mutually beneficial in that they achieve a division of labor according to each channel's competitive advantage.     

水平竞争条件下的供应链信息泄露策略

本文探讨非对称信息下,制造商针对议价能力不同的大型及小型零售商分别采用了收益共享、批发价合约时,大型零售商的市场信息被制造商泄露给竞争对手,从而对供应链产生的影响。通过对比有无信息泄露下各方成员的博弈过程,分析供应链信息泄露的原理;进而在制造商总是会泄露信息的前提下,构建基于信号传递的信息泄露下供应链成员决策模型,分别讨论分离均衡与混同均衡两种情形下,零售商的订货策略及其相应的收益。在此基础上进一步做出扩展,制造商有主动权以选择是否泄露信息的情况,对比分析零售商的策略选择问题。经过分析发现,出于自身利益的角度,制造商总是会泄露信息,从而导致供应链的整体利润下滑。对此,大型零售商的订货策略选择与市场需求的波动程度有关：波动较小则选择混同均衡;波动较大则选择分离均衡。特别地,当市场需求为低时,大型零售商的最优订货量会向下扭曲,即支付一定的“信息租金”作为应对信息泄露的代价。     

Information Sharing in a Manufacturer–Supplier Relationship: Suppliers' Incentive and Production Efficiency

While there have been vast discussions on the materialistic benefits of continuous improvement from the Toyota and Honda experiences, the academic literature pays little attention to information sharing. In this study, we construct a dynamic adverse selection model in which the supplier privately observes her production efficiency, and in the contractual duration the manufacturer obtains an informative but imprecise signal regarding this private efficiency. We show that despite the disclosure of proprietary information, information sharing may benefit the supplier; the supplier's voluntary participation is more likely to occur when the shared information is rather imprecise. On the other hand, our analysis also reveals that this information sharing unambiguously gives rise to an upward push of the production quantity, and may sometimes lead to an upward distortion that ultimately hurts the supply chain. We also document the non‐trivial impact of the timing of information sharing on the supplier's incentive to participate.     

Procurement Contracts in the Presence of Endogenous Disruption Risk

We consider a manufacturer facing an unreliable supplier with high or low type on initial reliability. The private reliability can be enhanced through process improvement initiated by either manufacturer (manufacturer‐initiated improvement, MI) or supplier (supplier‐initiated improvement, SI). We derive optimal procurement contracts for both mechanisms and find that the moral hazard does not necessarily generate more profit for high‐type supplier. Furthermore, information asymmetry causes a greater possibility of not ordering from low type in SI than MI. For low type, when an upward effort distortion appears in both mechanisms, a decreased (increased) unit penalty should be imposed in MI (SI) compared with symmetric information case. Although possibly efficient effort from the supplier could yield greater channel profit in SI, several scenarios violate this expectation. However, the manufacturer's expected profit in MI is no less than that in SI. When MI is extended to MSI where both manufacturer and supplier can exert effort, the expected profits of two parties are equal to those in SI. We further extend SI to SID, where both process improvement and dual‐sourcing are available. The manufacturer considers the trade‐off between the benefit from diversification and the loss from dual information rent to decide to choose SID or MI. By comparing SID with pure dual‐sourcing, we find that supplier's process improvement could either accelerate or retard the exercise of dual‐sourcing.     

Optimal Policy for a Reseller When the Supplier Offers a Temporary Reduction in Price*

A common practice in product distribution is the case in which the supplier offers a temporary reduction in price. It is suggested in the literature that in such situations, the reseller may engage in forward buying (i.e., purchasing additional stock at the reduced price offered by the supplier for later sale at the regular selling price). In this paper, a model is formulated of the reseller's response when the supplier offers a temporary reduction in price. It is assumed that the market demand for the product is elastic with respect to the selling price the reseller sets. A procedure for determining the optimal response of the reseller is developed. The model presented in this paper can easily be adapted to the case in which the reseller faces a permanent increase in the price charged by the supplier.     

Stackelberg竞争下考虑消费者转移和平台差异的供应商运营策略

考虑消费者转移和平台差异对需求的影响,构建不同渠道结构和销售契约下的决策模型;基于水平和垂直Stackelberg博弈,获得8种情形下的最优决策。探究佣金率、平台差异和消费者转移率对均衡结果的影响,获得最优的销售契约和渠道配置策略。研究表明:代理模式可以降低产品的销售价格,提升销量;垄断市场中,平台更愿意采取转售模式,而供应商更偏好代理模式;竞争环境下,优势平台一定条件下总是更偏好转售模式,而竞争平台销售模式偏好随着佣金率逐渐变化;供应商的渠道选择与消费者转移量有关,当转移量较高时,供应商偏向双渠道结构,反之亦然。     

考虑退货影响的品牌商O2O渠道选择与决策优化

考虑网购顾客退货影响,利用消费者效用理论分别构建了网络、实体及O2O渠道不同混合模式下的需求函数,研究了品牌商在单一网络渠道、"网络+O2O"渠道、"网络+实体"以及"网络+O2O+实体"渠道模式下的最优定价策略,分析了网络渠道退货率对不同渠道组合下品牌商最优定价与利润的影响,着重讨论了网络品牌商和"网络+实体"双渠道品牌商选择O2O渠道的条件。研究表明,较高的网络渠道退货率将导致较高的网络渠道定价,降低品牌商利润。若开设O2O渠道不能降低网络渠道退货率,品牌商选择O2O渠道取决于其运营成本及退货率大小,运营成本低且销售个性化等高退货率产品的品牌商适合开设O2O渠道;若开设O2O渠道可以降低网络渠道退货率,品牌商是否开设O2O渠道取决于运营成本、退货率以及运费。或运营成本低,或运营成本高但运费低,或运营成本高、运费高以及销售高退货率产品,这三种情形下的品牌商应该选择开设O2O渠道。     

考虑线下权力结构的制造商线上销售模式选择研究

在线下垂直实力对等、制造商主导和实体店主导三种渠道权力结构下，构建制造商、实体店和电商之间的博弈模型，探讨线下渠道权力结构与制造商线上销售模式的匹配关系。研究结果表明：（1）当电商要求的佣金比例较小时，在不同的线下渠道权力结构下，制造商都应该选择线上代销模式；而当电商要求的佣金比例较大时，在线下垂直实力对等结构下，制造商应该选择线上转销模式，而在制造商主导和实体店主导结构下，制造商应该选择线上代销模式。（2）当制造商选择线上转销模式时，在线下制造商主导的结构下，制造商给予实体店的批发价格最大，在垂直实力对等结构下次之，在实体店主导结构下最小。然而，线下渠道权力结构的差异并不会影响制造商给予电商的批发价格。（3）当制造商选择线上代销模式时，在线下制造商主导结构下，线下销售价格最高；在线下垂直实力对等结构下，线上销售价格最高。     

PRICE‐DEPENDENT INVENTORY MODELS WITH DISCOUNT OFFERS AT RANDOM TIMES*

We consider an inventory model with a supplier offering discounts to a reseller at random epochs. The offer is accepted when the inventory position is lower than a threshold level. We compare three different pricing policies in which demand is induced by the resellers price variation. Policy 1 is the EOQ policy without discount offers. Policy 2 is a uniform price, stock‐independent policy. Policy 3 is a stock level‐dependent, discriminated price policy. Assuming constant demand rates, expressions are obtained for the optimal order quantities, prices, and profits. The numerical experiments show that if it is better to accept a suppliers discount, then it benefits the reseller to transfer the discount to downstream customers.     

Wholesale Pricing under Mild and Privately Known Concerns for Fairness

This article studies the performance of wholesale pricing when the supply chain partners' fairness concerns are private information. We find that some properties of wholesale pricing established under complete information hold under incomplete information as well. First, wholesale pricing can coordinate the supply chain, despite the information asymmetry, when fairness concerns are strong enough. Second, in the case when an equitable profit split does not imply that the retailers profit must be higher than that of the supplier, the suppliers' equilibrium offer is never rejected. Overall, the study makes two primary contributions. First, it provides a partial characterization of the equilibrium when the conditions required for coordination do not hold, that is, when fairness concerns are mild. In this case, the model predicts that the expected market price must be exactly the same as under complete information. The channel efficiency, nevertheless, is strictly lower than under complete information. The distribution‐free lower bound on channel efficiency suggests that this efficiency loss should be quite small, though. Second, it provides an experimental test of the models' predictions as well as a direct validation of the assumptions of preferences heterogeneity and mildness by obtaining the empirical distribution of the preferences.     

Strategic Motive for Introducing Internet Channels in a Supply Chain

Rapid advances of information technology in recent years have enabled both the manufacturers and the retailers to operate their own Internet channels. In this study, we investigate the interaction between the capabilities of introducing the Internet channels, the pricing strategies, and the channel structure. We classify consumers into two segments: grocery shoppers attach a higher utility from purchasing through the physical channel, whereas a priori Internet shoppers prefer purchasing online. We find that when the Internet shoppers are either highly profitable or fairly unimportant, the manufacturer prefers to facilitate the channel separation either through his own Internet channel or the retailer's. In the intermediate region, however, the manufacturer encroaches the grocery shoppers and steals the demand from the retailer's physical channel. With horizontal competition between retailers, a priori symmetric retailers may adopt different channel strategies as a stable market equilibrium. The manufacturer may willingly give up his Internet channel and leverage on the retailer competition. When the manufacturer sells through an online e‐tailer, Internet shoppers may be induced to purchase through the physical channel. This reverse encroachment strategy emerges because selling through the e‐tailer leads to a more severe double marginalization problem.     

不同渠道权力结构下资金约束零售商的采购和融资策略

针对由供应商、3PL企业和资金约束零售商组成的供应链,研究了三种渠道权力结构（以供应商为主导的S权利结构、以3PL企业为主导的L权利结构、供应商和3PL企业同时主导的N权力结构）和两种融资模式（3PL企业融资服务和贸易信贷融资）下零售商的采购和融资策略。首先,分别构建了针对三种渠道权力结构和两种融资模式的以供应链成员利润最大化为目标的优化模型,并通过求解模型得到了供应商、3PL企业和零售商的最优定价策略;然后,通过比较不同情形下的供应链成员利润,分析了零售商的采购和融资策略。研究结果表明：在S权力结构下,零售商应选择直接向供应商订货并接受贸易信贷融资模式;在L权力结构下,零售商应选择接受3PL企业的代理采购和融资服务;在N权力结构下,零售商应选择融资利率更高的采购和融资模式。此外发现,供应商和3PL企业均应选择优先宣布定价策略,当二者在市场中权力相当时,其应该调高各自的融资利率。     

需求信息扭曲条件下供应链成员运营决策研究

本文在供应商和零售商需求信息不对称的背景下,考虑了由一个供应商和两个具有不平等地位零售商组成的供应链,运用信号博弈理论和完美贝叶斯纳什均衡理论,研究批发价格合同下,供应链中存在的信息泄露和信息扭曲对供应链成员运营决策的影响。在批发价格合同下,供应商总会泄露市场地位高的零售商订单信息,两个零售商存在斯塔克伯格竞争。本文进一步研究分析,得到存在信息泄露的两种均衡策略——分离均衡和混同均衡,给出零售商在不同市场需求条件下的订购决策。本文还指出在一定条件下,供应商可能在信息泄露过程中扭曲信息,误导市场地位低的零售商做出错误决策,供应商和市场地位高的零售商获得更大利润。当供应商扭曲信息时,尽管市场地位低的零售商利润降低,但其仍将继续留在市场中,零售商之间仍然保持水平竞争。最后,通过算例分析,对研究结论进行直观验证和说明。本文研究了供应链存在的信息泄露和信息扭曲问题,为现实中供应链各个主体行为提供理论依据。     

Hierarchical Screening for Capacity Allocation in Supply Chains: The Role of Distributors

We consider a two‐stage principal–agent screening environment in a decentralized supply chain with retailers, distributors, and a supplier. The retailers possess private information regarding their local market profitabilities. The distributors can partially observe the retailers' profitabilities and are heterogeneous with regard to the precision of that information. The supplier determines the level of production, but knows neither the local market profitabilities nor the precision of the distributors' information. The supplier first allocates finished products to distributors, and the distributors then contract with local retailers with a capacity constraint. We find that due to the distributors' superior information, the quantity distortion on the retailers' side is mitigated, and the upstream information asymmetry subsequently affects the quantity allocation among the downstream retailers. The supplier may not benefit from contracting with the distributors. In addition, no distributor is excluded based on the heterogeneity of the information precision, even though some distributors do not have better information than the supplier. In the numerical examples, we further analyze how the local market heterogeneity and inventory costs affect the capacity allocation, the retailers' payoffs, and the supply chain profits. We document some counter‐intuitive quantity allocation rules that arise from the distributors' information advantage.     

竞争环境下主导电子零售商的销售模式选择和信息共享策略

考虑由单一供应商、单一电子零售商和单一传统零售商组成的供应链，研究了占主导地位的电子零售商的在线销售模式(转售和代理销售)选择及信息共享策略。首先，针对两种在线销售模式，构建了信息共享和不共享情形下以供应链成员利润最大化为目标的优化模型，并通过求解模型得到了供应链成员的均衡定价和订货策略；然后，比较了不同策略组合下供应链各成员的期望利润，分析了各成员的信息共享策略偏好以及电子零售商的销售模式选择策略。研究表明：1)在转售模式下，当市场需求波动程度较小时，信息共享会增加电子零售商的利润，降低供应商和传统零售商的利润；当波动程度较大时，则相反；当市场需求波动处于中等水平时，电子零售商不共享信息能使供应商、电子零售商和传统零售商达成三赢局面。2)在代理销售模式下，信息共享能增加传统零售商的利润，但不一定能增加供应商和电子零售商的利润。只有佣金费率较低，高市场类型的概率较低且市场需求波动不大时，信息共享才是电子零售商的最优策略。3)主导电子零售商应该选择转售模式。本文的研究可为主导电商企业销售模式选择和信息分享决策提供理论依据;为相关零售企业在不同策略组合下定价和订货决策提供支持。     

产能有限的供应商主导的双渠道分销策略研究

在供应商产能有限的背景下,研究供应商的最优分配策略和双渠道分销的问题。根据期望利润最大化建立供应商渠道分配模型,依据纳什均衡确定供应商的最优定价、最优产能和最优分销策略。结果表明,在双渠道策略的情况下,供应商应该优先满足销售企业的销售量。若供应链的销售量恰好得到满足,供应商应该按最优产能生产。供应商的渠道选择与供应商产能、供应链各节点的盈利能力和生产成本有关。     

考虑实体店公平关切的制造商线上入侵策略研究

在单一线下模式销售的基础上,考察制造商以转销模式进行线上入侵和以代销模式进行线上入侵这两种模式,通过数理推导和数值仿真得到的研究结果表明：（1）当实体店具有公平关切心理时,制造商进行线上入侵总是有利的。（2）当消费者对线上渠道接受程度较高且实体店公平关切程度较低时,制造商将以转销模式进行线上入侵;当消费者对线上渠道接受程度较低时,制造商会以代销模式进行线上入侵,并不受实体店公平关切程度的影响;而当消费者对线上渠道接受程度适中且实体店的公平关切程度较高时,制造商倾向于以转销模式进行线上入侵。（3）无论制造商选择哪种模式进行线上入侵,制造商的线下零售价格始终高于线上。此外,随着实体店公平关切程度的增强,线上渠道和线下渠道的零售价均会同步提高。     

Advance Selling in the Presence of Speculators and Forward‐Looking Consumers

This article examines the pricing policy of a monopolist seller who may sell in advance of consumption in a market that comprises of myopic consumers, forward‐looking consumers, and speculators. The latter group has no consumption value for the goods and is in the market with the sole objective of making a profit by reselling the purchased goods shortly after. Consumers, although homogeneous in terms of their valuations, are different with respect to their perspectives. We show that in an “upward” market where the expected valuation increases over time, the optimal pricing policy is an ex ante “static” one where the seller “prices into the future” and prices the myopic consumers out of the advance market. However, in a “downward” market where the expected valuation decreases over time, the seller adopts a dynamic pricing strategy except for the case when higher initial sales can trigger more demand subsequently and when the downward trend is not too high. In this case, the seller prefers an ex ante “static” pricing strategy and deliberately prices lower initially to sell to speculators. We identify the conditions under which the seller benefits from the existence of speculators in the market. Moreover, although the presence of entry costs is ineffective as an entry deterrence, we determine the conditions under which exit costs can rein in speculative purchase.     

Managing the Reverse Channel with RFID‐Enabled Negative Demand Information

We analyze the inventory decisions of a manufacturer who has ample production capacity and also uses returned products to satisfy customer demand. All returned items go through an evaluation process, at the end of which the decision of disposal, direct reselling, or rework is made for each unit according to a predetermined procedure. We quantify the value of information/visibility on the reverse channel for the manufacturer by making comparisons among three approaches: No information‐naive; no visibility‐enlightened; and full visibility. We find the value of visibility increases with the comparative length of the reverse channel and volume, volatility, and usability of returns. Furthermore, the smarter the manufacturer, the less benefit visibility brings to the system. By this analysis, we quantify the visibility savings of radio frequency identification (RFID) in the reverse channel as a candidate enabler technology. We also provide numerical examples to show that practical approximations in inventory management may have acceptable penalties to the manufacturer with visibility.     

考虑电商平台服务投资的平台渠道引入策略

针对由单个制造商和单个电商平台组成的在线销售系统,构建了电商平台无服务投资下是否引入平台渠道、电商平台服务投资下是否引入平台渠道的四个决策模型,运用博弈论方法,探讨了电商平台服务投资决策对平台渠道引入决策的影响。发现：电商平台服务投资可促进平台渠道的引入,且促进效应随着消费者对服务敏感程度的增加而增加;只有当平台渠道的佣金费率处于中等范围且平台渠道的销售成本较小时,在线销售系统中才有可能引入平台渠道;电商平台服务投资是一种占优策略,且可实现帕累托改进。最后,研究表明制造商使用两部定价策略可以促使电商平台提供使系统收益最大化的服务水平,进一步实现双赢。