Research On Supply Chain Operation Decision And Coordination In The Presence Of Consumer Strategy Behavior Under Gray Markets

Gray market refers to an "informal" sales channel that sells products of a brand in a certain area without authorization of the trademark owner.Due to the different sales environment,economic status and social purchasing power of different regions,manufacturers set different supply prices for different regions.The price gap between different markets provides speculators the opportunity of speculative arbitrage,by reselling products from low-price supply areas to high-price areas.In the existing literature on gray market research there are few research on strategic consumer behavior,thus aiming at the shortcomings of the existing research,this article construct a supply chain model consisting of one manufacturer,two authorized distributors in two markets and a group of independent gray market speculators.The selling period is divided into two stages,where gray markets take place in the second one,and there some strategic consumers who will wait to this stage and may choose to buy products from gray markets.Based on this model,this paper mainly discusses the following issues: the manufacturer and the distributors' decentralized operation decisions and centralized operation decision in the presence of gray markets and strategic consumers,and also discuss the pricing decisions when the manufacturer attempts to eliminate the gray markets,the impact of gray market on supply chain,and the problem of supply chain coordination.