Research On Consumer Review Strategies Under Social Learning And Capacity Constraint

In recent years,driven by the development and prevalence of Internet technology,consumers have shown significant growth in the scale of online purchase.It is not uncommon for suppliers to set up additional online direct sales stores in addition to original traditional retail channels,and the dual-channel sales model for products is increasingly receiving attention from firms.The establishment of online direct sales channels makes the word-of-mouth of product quality reflected by consumer reviews enter people’s field of vision.Consumers rely on product quality information from online reviews to reduce purchase uncertainty,resorting to social learning to make purchase decisions.Such effect of social learning on the demand side will inevitably operate on the supply chain members’ profit and decision.For suppliers in the supply chain who widely suffer from capacity constraint,the issue of whether and when to open online reviews has become a topic that deserves consideration.Also,it is not easy to ignore the impact of capacity constraint from the supply side on operational strategies in the supply chain.As such,it is necessary to consider social learning and capacity constraint when investigating supply chain members’ preference for online review strategy and the supplier’s capacity allocation.This thesis considers a supplier who sets up the online direct sales channel in addition to the traditional retail channel in the supply chain consisting of a capacityconstrained supplier and a retailer.The closing strategy and the opening strategy are two strategies regarding consumer reviews available to the supplier.The game models under two online review strategies are constructed,respectively.By solving and comparing the profits and relevant decisions of supply chain members under two review strategies,the impact of social learning and capacity constraint on supply chain members’ preference for online review strategy is examined in the dual-channel setting.Besides,this thesis introduces social learning into capacity allocation,and explores the capacity allocation scheme in the presence of online reviews.The combination of theoretical analysis and numerical analysis is employed in this thesis to obtain the following results.First,it is the joint impact of social learning and capacity constraint determines supply chain members’ preference for online review strategy.Further,the value of utility discount and consumers’ estimate of product quality updated with online reviews play a role in the supplier’s and retailer’s preference for online review strategy,respectively.In particular,when the value of utility discount is relatively small,although consumers perceive poor product quality from online reviews,opening reviews is still the optimal strategy for the supplier at relatively moderate capacity.Second,the supply chain members’ preference for online review strategy may not appear to be in complete opposition,and it is possible for them to reach consensus under certain conditions.When consumers perceive poor product quality from online reviews,supply chain members can benefit from the closing strategy at a certain capacity.When consumers perceive good product quality from online reviews,supply chain members can reach consensus on the opening strategy at a certain capacity only if the value of consumers’ estimate of product quality updated with online reviews is relatively small.Third,when considering social learning in the supplier’s capacity allocation,the capacity available for the retailer to order shows an inverse relationship with consumers’ perception of product quality updated with online reviews.