Pricing Decision And Operation Strategies Of Dual-channel Supply Chain Under E-commerce Environment

The rapid development of online platform sales mode has brought many operational problems to be solved for e-commerce platforms,such as green investment,pre-sales service allocation,demand information sharing,and selection of e-commerce sales mode.Therefore,this paper focuses on different market conditions and different supply chain structures.Firstly,this paper considers cap-and-trade mechanism and consumers preferences in the dual-channel green supply chain and studies pricing and green investment strategy under the certain demand.Then,this paper considers two green investment strategies of e-commerce platform and two e-commerce sales modes,further studies green investment strategy and e-commerce sales model selection strategy of green dual-channel supply chain with participation of e-commerce platform.Next,in the uncertain demand market,the pricing and pre-sales service decisions,information sharing strategy,e-commerce enterprise’s information sharing strategy and e-commerce sales model selection strategy in the dual-channel supply chain are studied.Finally,the pricing and after-sales service decisions under uncertain demand are studied.The specific research contents of this paper are as follows:(1)This paper studies the pricing and green promotion service decisions of green dual-channel supply chain under certain demand.E-commerce platform features large customer flow and standardized low-cost sales services,providing new sales opportunities for green manufacturers.Product display and sales through e-commerce platforms can effectively reduce operating costs and relieve the production pressure of manufacturers.Environmental regulators are putting increasing pressure on manufacturers and companies to conserve energy and cut emissions.This paper(Chapter 3)focuses on a two-echo dual-channel supply chain consisting of a green manufacturer and a retailer providing low-carbon promotional services.Cap-and-trade regulation and consumer’s environmental awareness are incorporated into the green supply chain.Two decentralized models in the single and joint green investment schemes under cap-and-trade regulation in a dual-channel supply chain are constructed.Importantly,we focus on analyzing the equilibriums and digging deep into the impacts of cap-and-trade regulation,joint green investment and online direct channel on the performances of supply chain.Interestingly,we find that consumer’s environmental preference effectually motivates both the manufacturer and retailer to reduce emissions.The analysis results of the numerical examples show that introducing an online channel is always good for improving enterprises’ profits,as well as protecting the environment in the joint green investment strategy.Besides,the retailer should provide consumers with better service in the retail channel,which can further promote purchase power and drive the sustainable development of the supply chain.The manufacturer,when consumers have strong environmental preferences,should actively participate in cap-and-trade mechanism no matter single or joint green investment strategy is enforced.(2)This paper studies the e-commerce sales mode selection strategy and green investment strategy of the green dual-channel supply chain with the participation of e-commerce enterprises under certain demand.The rise of the e-commerce industry largely depends on the rapid development of the logistics industry.It is an important issue that modern e-commerce enterprises need to pay attention to reduce the large amount of carbon emissions produced in the process of logistics and transportation.Therefore,it is of great practical significance to study the e-retailer’s green investment strategy for improving the efficiency of environmental governance and promoting the consumption of green products.This paper(Chapter 4)based on the cap-and-trade mechanism,considering a dual-channel green e-commerce supply chain consisting of one green manufacturer and one e-retailer.Based on two green investment strategies for e-commerce platforms(participate in green investment or not)and two e-commerce sales modes(i.e.,platform mode and reseller mode),the paper constructs four Stackelberg models.Interaction of the e-retailer’s green investment strategy and the online sales mode selection strategy is studied.The results show that,the participation of e-retailer in green investment is more beneficial to supply chain profits and more environmentally friendly.In addition,the platform mode is more beneficial to the supply chain.Under the reseller mode,the green investment behavior of e-retailer is not always favorable to the manufacturer.When the manufacturer is the weaker party or has the cost advantage,the manufacturer always tends to choose the platform mode;when the manufacturer is a strong party or at a cost disadvantage,the manufacturer pays more attention to its direct channels and is more inclined to choose the reseller model.If both parties choose the reseller mode,the participation of e-commerce in green investment will be more beneficial to both parties’ profits and the environment.If both parties choose the platform mode,e-retailer to participate in the green investment is beneficial to the manufacturer’s profit,supply chain’s profit and the environment.However,when manufacturer’s marketing ability is strong,the e-retailer tends to invest in greening;when manufacturer’s marketing ability is weak,the e-retailer rejects to invest in greening.(3)This paper studies the pricing and after-sales service decisions of dual-channel e-commerce supply chain under uncertain demand.This paper(Chapter5)considers the two-level dual-channel e-commerce supply chain composed of one manufacturer and one e-retailer,this paper studies the selection strategy of e-commerce sales model and the information sharing strategy of e-retailer’s predicting demand.Four Stackelberg decentralized game models are constructed for different e-commerce sales modes(i.e.,reseller mode and platform mode)selection strategies and different information sharing strategies.This paper studies the selection of e-commerce sales mode and information sharing strategy in a dual-channel supply chain.The results show that in two e-commerce sales modes,only if the investment efficiency of the manufacturer’s after-sales service is high,e-retailer is willing to share information.Information sharing does not always add value to the e-retailer.Moreover,forecasting accuracy always has a positive impact on the e-retailer’s profit.However,the manufacturer would benefit from more accurate forecasting demand in the case of sharing information.Otherwise,prediction accuracy is negatively correlated with the manufacturer’s profit.Besides,the choice of optimal e-commerce sales mode strategy depends on the level of the manufacturer’s investment efficiency.Specifically,if the manufacturer invests in after-sales service more efficiently,platform mode is preferred.If not,they prefer reseller mode.(4)This paper studies the pricing decision,pre-sales service decision and information sharing strategy of retailer’s forecasting demand in a dual-channel supply chain under uncertain demand.As the products produced by competitive merchants in the e-commerce industry tend to be homogenized in terms of quality and price,more and more enterprises are trying to stimulate consumption and demand through service-oriented strategies,and both online and offline merchants are trying to provide better pre-sale and after-sale services for customers.In an e-commerce environment,pre-sales services can be provided to consumers through online platforms by manufacturers participating in ‘credit purchase’ or by offline retailers.The spread of the Internet has made it cheaper for consumers to hitchhike.Therefore,when offline retailers provide pre-sale services,free-riding effect will have a certain impact on the decisions of members of the supply chain.The study of service-related strategies in the dual-channel supply chain of e-commerce will provide important theoretical and practical basis for enterprise management decisions in the new retail era.This paper(Chapter 6)considers two pre-sales service allocation strategies:retailer is responsible for pre-sales service and manufacturer is responsible for pre-sales service.Based on different pre-sales service allocation strategies and different information sharing strategies,four Stackelberg decentralized game models are constructed.The influences of demand forecasting accuracy,channel competition intensity and free-riding behavior on the relevant equilibrium results are discussed in depth.The results show that the retailer should actively cooperate with the manufacturer and share private forecasting information if the coefficient of channel substitution is relative high.Besides,the retailer’s profit is positively influenced by the forecasting accuracy in four models.When the manufacturer invests in the pre-sales service,the prediction accuracy hurts the manufacturer’s profit without information sharing and a positive impact with information sharing.Free riding hurts two parties and the whole supply chain.In addition,when the retailer chooses information sharing strategy,improving predictive accuracy can enhance the value that information sharing brings to the manufacturer and retailer.To sum up,in practice,solving the operation strategies related to dual-channel supply chain in the e-commerce environment will promote the development of e-commerce enterprises and network economy.In theory,the key operational decisions in the traditional supply chain will generate a series of new practical and scientific problems due to the participation of e-commerce enterprises.Therefore,it has certain practical and theoretical significance to study the operation strategies of enterprises in the dual-channel supply chain with the participation of e-commerce platforms.