Research On Capacity Allocation And Pricing Strategies In A Supply Chain Under The E-commerce Environment

With the expanding of e-commerce market,that how e-tailers allocate supplier's limited capacity and make ordering and pricing strategies becomes more and more important.Under e-commerce circumstance,this study investigates capacity allocation and pricing strategies in a supply chain consisting of multiple competitive retailers and single supplier,as well as retailers' equilibrium ordering strategies.Also,this study examines how allocation mechanism affects supply chain members' decision and coordinates the supply chain.Besides,considering the variety of products sold by e-tailers and effects of online reviews on consumers' purchase decisions,this study investigates pricing strategies of competitive manufacturers and one common retailer,where the retailer sells substitutive products from different manufacturers,while analyzing the effects of online reviews on supply chain members' pricing strategies.(1)This study considers capacity allocation and pricing strategies in a supply chain composed by two competitive e-tailers and single supplier,where the supplier's capacity is limited,and retailers engage in Cournot competition in the market.Combining the principles of lexicographic allocation and proportional allocation,a fixed factor allocation is proposed,which guarantees the retailer with high priority a fixed proportion of capacity,and allocates the rest capacity to the retailer with low priority.By solving the Stackelberg game with the supplier as leader and retailers as followers,the optimal whole price and equilibrium ordering quantities of retailers are derived.On the basis,this study analyzes effects of fixed factor on supply chain members' optimal decisions and compares the fixed factor allocation and proportional allocation,it results that from the perspective of the supplier and supply chain,the fixed factor allocation incorporates the lexicographic allocation and proportional allocation.(2)This study investigates capacity allocation and pricing strategies in a supply chain with multiple oligopoly e-tailers gaming in the market.A extended fixed factor allocation is introduced,and its properties are analyzed.Then,the retailers' equilibrium ordering quantities and supplier's optimal whole price are obtained through solving theStackelberg game constituted by the supplier and retailers.Next,this study analyzes the effects of fixed factor on retailers' gaming,and compares supply chain members' optimal decisions and profits under the fixed factor allocation and proportional allocation,which shows the above two allocation mechanisms induces the same optimal wholesale price and supply chain profit when fixed factors satisfy certain condition.Lastly,by comparing decentralized supply chain profit under the fixed factor allocation with centralized supply chain profit,it shows that the fixed factor allocation can coordinate the supply chain when the market is large enough.(3)This study considers pricing strategies in a supply chain consisting of multiple competitive manufacturers with sufficient capacity and an e-retailer,which sells multiple substitutable products procured from different manufacturers.Reviews provides additional information of products for consumers,which further affects consumers' purchase decisions.Through modelling customer choice with online reviews based on neo-hoteling model,consumer's demand function is derived,which shows that quality information and fit information revealed by reviews plays different roles on consumer demand: quality information decides manufacturers' market sizes,and fit information makes consumers more close to their preferences,which mitigates competition among manufacturers.Next,by solving Stackelberg game composed by manufacturers and e-retailer,optimal equilibrium prices of manufacturers and the e-retailer are obtained.Furthermore,compared to the case without online reviews,this study investigates the effects of online reviews on consumers' purchasing decisions as well as pricing strategies of manufacturers and the e-retailer.