Computational Experiments On Supply Chains' Channel Management From The Perspective Of Consumer Behavior

The complicated consumer behavior in the market will affect the supply chain members' prediction of the demand and further influences the decisions and profit of enterprises.First,using market uncertainty to depict the complicated consumer behavior from the perspective of the whole market.Then,each consumer's purchasing behavior is depicted in detail.Respectively,from the perspective of time,strategic consumers deliberately delay purchases,and from the perspective of space,consumers can choose and transfer among multiple purchasing channels.In supply chain management,enterprises from vertical and horizontal perspectives consider channel strategy.From the vertical perspective,enterprises focus on the comparison of the supply chain members' decisions and profits between a centralized structure and a decentralized one,to reveal the motivation of decentralization.From the horizontal perspective,this paper firstly explores the manufacturer's motivation to introduce an online direct channel in addition to the single retail channel,and then focuses on product differentiation strategy in dual-channel supply chains.This paper contributes to the study in marketing and supply chain management.Supply chain members are simulated as multiple agents in computational experiments.This paper studies the process of agents' learning and decisions optimization,and analyze the experimental results to obtain meaningful managerial implications.Chapter 2 considers the fact that,in real life,decision makers in enterprises are not able to follow all the unexpected situations in the consumer market,which will bring uncertainty to the decision makers.Thus,by considering the impact of market uncertainty,the research focuses on the motivation of the manufacturer to introduce the online direct channel and build the dual-channel supply chain.In the supply chain,the manufacturer decides the online price and the wholesale price,and the retailer optimizes the retail channel price and the order quantity.The results show that the manufacturer will build the dual-channel structure,if(?)consumers have high acceptance of the online channel,(?)heterogeneous consumers' product valuations are similar,(?)market uncertainty is high,or(?)the unit production cost is low.Further,the extended model considers competition between multiple supply chains in the market,and finds that competition does not change the managerial implications in the basic model,qualitatively.Moreover,if the competing supply chains are all single-channel structures,the manufacturer can gain benefit from introducing an online channel,and the benefit decreases with the number of competing dual-channel supply chains.Besides,the motivation of the manufacturer to introduce an online channel increases with the competition degree in the market.Chapter 3 studies the pricing and ordering strategy of seasonal products in two selling periods:one full-price period and one sale period.Based on the principle of utility maximization,strategic consumers in the market will decide not only"whether" but also "when" to purchase a product.By comparing the members'decisions and profits under a centralized structure and a decentralized structure,this paper explores the enterprise's motivation of decentralization in the presence of strategic consumers.The results imply that consumers are more willing to delay purchases if they are less sensitive to waiting time,as a result,the enterprise's profit decreases.Decentralization can weaken the impact of strategic consumers and improve the profit.Second,when consumers' product valuation is low,the enterprise's profit decreases.In this case,the enterprise can decentralize the supply chain to gain higher profit.In addition,heterogeneous consumers have different valuations of the product,when the heterogeneity of consumers is high,the enterprise can improve the profit by decentralizing the channel structure.Moreover,different combinations of default parameter values are set for each parameter in computational experiments to verify the managerial implication of the experimental results,qualitatively.Finally,the enterprise can effectively restrain consumers' waiting behavior,by setting an endogenous sale price and deciding the prices in two periods at the beginning of selling.Chapter 4 studies consumers' free riding behavior in a dual-channel supply chain,where the manufacturer is the leader in the Stackelberg game and the retailer is the follower.After consuming the in-store services,experiencing the products and supplementing the non-digital product information in physical retail stores,consumers can switch to the online channel for a lower product price.The physical retailer bears the service cost but does not increase the revenue.The result shows that free riding has negative impact on the retailer.The enterprise can offer the same products in the dual-channel supply chain,or differentiate the products in the two channels.By comparing the members' decisions and profits in these two strategies,this paper explores the conditions where the enterprise is motivated to differentiate products in dual channels.The results show that the same product online is a serious threat to the physical retailer,so to avoid the cannibalization from the online channel,the retailer has to reduce the price in the fierce price competition.As a result,the number of free riders decreases dues to the small price difference between the dual channels.In addition,the number of free riders has positive correlation with unit service cost,product differentiation and consumers' online product information with in-store service,but negative correlation with unit production cost,traveling cost,online searching cost and consumers' ex-ante product information without in-store service.Computational experiments are used to compare the manufacturer's profits with the homogeneous or differentiated product strategy.The experimental results show that enterprises tend to differentiate the products in the dual-channel supply chain when the unit service cost is moderate.Second,when consumers are highly heterogeneous among the preferences for ideal products or have low valuation of the online product,the enterprise will provide differentiated products in the dual channels and thereby improving the manufacturer's profitability.Chapter 5 summarizes the research results and managerial implications of this paper,and points out the limitations of the research and the direction in the further work.