عدم تقارن اطلاعاتی، استراتژی قیمت گذاری و عملکرد شرکت در زنجیره تامین تولید کننده خرده فروش چند کاناله

In this research paper, we assume a retailer-multi-channel manufacturer (with online and traditional retail channels) supply chain where both the multi-channel manufacturer and the retailer have private information about the state of consumer demand. In this setting, we examine the effect of an information sharing strategy on both firms' performance. Our results show that the multi-channel manufacturer always benefits from an information sharing strategy. When the product is highly compatible with the online channel, information sharing becomes much more valuable to the multi-channel manufacturer. On the other hand, the retailer's performance is not impacted by an information sharing strategy. Thus, a bargaining model is utilized to implement profit sharing for the multi-channel manufacturer and retailer so that an information sharing equilibrium can be reached. Based on our results, we derive optimal market strategies and identify probable paths of future research.

There has been a growing interest in improving performance and supply chain efficiency for all members of a supply chain through information sharing. In many cases, supply chain players make decisions with limited information. A significant benefit of information sharing is that the shared information (i.e., consumer demand information, sales trend and point-of-sale data, etc.) improves information accuracy and distribution planning. Recently, information sharing initiatives such as Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CRFR), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, Supply Chain Management integration, and Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) in the grocery industry have facilitated the sharing of demand information among the supply chain players. In the business market, for example, Wal-Mart and Warner-Lambert, maker of Listerine brand mouthwash, agreed to share demand information 6 months in advance of the expected retail sale date to improve order accuracy (Seifert, 2003). Apparel manufacturer VF and its retailer ShopK have benefited from exchanging information during product distribution. Information is essential to the supply chain players' decision making and planning process, and better information contributes to better decision making and stronger supply chain performance. The case of information sharing between the multi-channel manufacturer (with online and traditional channels) and the retailer has recently gained interest because many manufacturers, such as Hewlett & Packard, Lenovo, Dell Computer, Compaq, Sony, Panasonic, Mattel, Pioneer Electronics, Cisco System, and Estee Lauder, in a variety of industries, have begun to use multiple channels (online and traditional channels) to sell their products to consumers (Tsay and Agrawal, 2004, Kumar and Ruan, 2006, Seifert et al., 2006 and Chen et al., 2008). Consequently, channel coordination through information sharing between the multi-channel manufacturer and its retailer becomes significantly important. The rest of our paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a summary of the relevant literature. Section 3 presents our modeling framework. Section 4 analyzes the cases of non-information sharing and information sharing under the Stackelberg game. Section 5 compares the impact of different information strategies on firm's performance. We present our numerical examples in Section 6. Conclusions and managerial implications are presented in Section 7.

In this paper, we assumed a retailer-multi-channel manufacturer supply chain where both the retailer and the manufacturer have private information about the market demand. In this setting, we analyzed the profits for the supply chain under a non-information sharing scenario and under an information sharing scenario. We first derived the equilibrium prices and the profits under the two scenarios then investigated the impact of information sharing on each supply chain player's performance. We found that the multi-channel manufacturer always would like to share the retailer's information, particularly when the product is highly compatible with its online channel. However, the retailer's profit will not be impacted by information sharing. Thus the Nash (1950) bargaining model is used to implement profit sharing for the manufacturer and the retailer to motivate the retailer to share its information so that an information sharing equilibrium can be reached. Our numerical examples further illustrated and verified our analytical findings and provided more managerial insights. Our research addresses important issues and our findings provide valuable managerial implications for business managers. The most significant contribution is that our paper contributes to the substantial and growing research about the value of information sharing in a retailer-multi-channel manufacturer supply chain. With the rapid development of e-commerce, many manufacturers use multiple channels to sell their products to consumers. Thus it is managerially important to develop some mechanisms of coordination between a multi-channel manufacturer and its retailer to improve channel coordination and enhance supply chain performance. In our research, we use a game theoretic model to show that the multi-channel manufacturer can craft a profit-sharing mechanism to transfer part of the increased profit to the retailer as an incentive to share information, so that both the multi-channel manufacturer and the retailer would benefit from information sharing. Information sharing is particularly beneficial when the product web-fit is strong. In the business world, the supply chain consisting of a retailer (e.g. Wal-Mart, Staples, etc.) and its multi-channel manufacturer (e.g. Dell, Lenovo, etc.) is a typical example for our research. These businesses are able to use the managerial insights from our research to improve their marketing decisions to improve profit. This research can be extended in several directions. First, in this paper our analysis is based on a single period model; therefore, it is a good idea to investigate how information sharing might work in a multi-period. Second, information is assumed to be costless in this research. Research can be extended to include other variables, such as information cost, in order to continue studying the influence and impact of external factors relative to information accuracy. In the future, aside from considering other factors, we can extend our study to include other retailers in a competitive market.