Association Journal of CSIAM
Supervised by Ministry of Education of PRC
Sponsored by Xi'an Jiaotong University
ISSN 1005-3085  CN 61-1269/O1

Chinese Journal of Engineering Mathematics ›› 2023, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (4): 559-575.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1005-3085.2023.04.004

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Multi-channel Supply Chain Pricing Decisions Considering Heterogeneous Consumers

WANG Rufeng1,  HOU Pengwen2,  ZHENG Wei3   

  1. 1. School of Management, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang 471000;
    2. School of Management Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, Tianjin 300222;
    3. School of Business Administration Northeastern University, Shenyang 110167
  • Received:2021-07-28 Accepted:2022-12-25 Online:2023-08-15 Published:2023-10-15
  • Supported by:
    The National Natural Science Foundation of China (71801085; 72102163); the Major Soft Science Project of Henan Provincial Department of Science and Technology (222400410001); the Doctoral Scientific Research Foundation of Henan University of Science and Technology (13480037).

Abstract:

With the booming of e-commerce, more and more industries open multi-channels. A supply chain model is studied in which both the manufacturer and the retailer introduce the e-channel in addition to the traditional physical channel. This model incorporates heterogeneous consumers' lower valuation of the product sold through the e-channel and the discounted prices available in these channels. Using the traditional single-channel supply chain as a benchmark, Stackelberg games are applied to obtain the optimal equilibrium solutions of the benchmark and the proposed model. The results show that, compared with the benchmark, the wholesale price and the profits and the manufacturer's ability to control the market all will be improved; the retailer will reduce the retail price when the proportion of demand for the retailer's Internet channel is less and vice versa, but her profits will always be less than that of the benchmark. The manufacturer's profits will be better with respect to his proportion of demand of the Internet channel; numerical experiments show that the retailer's profits may increase or decrease with respect to her proportion of demand of the Internet channel, which is influenced by discount rate and the consumer acceptance of the Internet channel. Numerical experiments further show that we observe that the manufacturer's profit will decrease (increase) with respect to discount rate (the consumer acceptance of the Internet channel), but the retailer's profit will increase (decrease) with respect to discount rate (the consumer acceptance of the Internet channel). The research has a guiding significance for the multi-channel supply chain pricing considering the discounted prices online.

Key words: multi-channel supply chain, pricing decision, Stackelberg game, heterogeneous consumers, channel preference

CLC Number: