Research On Strategy Choice Of Pricing And Inventory In Retailer Dual-Channel

With the rapid development of B2C e-commerce and the change of consumers’ consumption behavior, more and more traditional retailers are trying to operate e-channel on the basis of traditional retail channel to open the wide networked market. However, retailers operating both the e-channel and the traditional bricks-and-mortar grocery store must meet lots of trouble. Thus, the author in the paper tries to make a study on dual-channel retailers in two critical aspects, product pricing and inventory. Contents of the thesis are as following:Firstly, the optimal pricing strategies of a retailer’s double channels are discussed. Four different pricing policies are concerned:the centralized pricing-decision strategy; the Bertrand pricing strategy; the Stackelberg strategy with the traditional channel as a leader and the Stackelberg strategy with the e-channel as a leader. Four different pricing policies regardless of the double channels’ coordination is firstly studied. It shows that the centralized pricing-decision strategy outperforms the other three pricing strategies. Then the relationships about market share and the cross-price coefficients among pricing strategies are explored. The author then establishes the profit models of the retailer’ dual-channel with coordination and non-coordination on the Stackelberg strategy with the e-channel as a leader. Sales effort compensation incentive coordination mechanism is considered to coordinate the channels’ conflict. By the comparison analysis, some conditions that meet the coordination effectiveness are found.Secondly, retailers’ dual-channel inventory operation strategy in B2C environment is studied. The author concludes three various inventory operation strategies:centralized strategy; outsourcing strategy; drop-shipping strategy. Models, using the Newsboy model framework, are then set up to analyze dual-channel retailers’, suppliers’ and the whole supply chain’s optimal inventory strategy. And the paper finally analyzes the influence of demand’s uncertainty level on dual-channel retailer’s, supplier’s and the whole supply chain’s optimal inventory by numerical study.Lastly, the author summarizes the main conclusion of the paper, and points out the limitations of the study and also presents further orientation of future research.