Research On Demand Information Sharing Strategy Selection In A Supply Chain Led By An E-tailer

E-commerce has been an important part of China’s economic development.During the booming process of e-commerce,e-tailers,represented by JD and ALIBA,have dominated the supply chain in terms of demand information gradually.With the assistance of advanced information technology,e-tailers can access consumer data more conveniently.Moreover,e-tailers can offer sales services based on the consumer data they obtain.As a result,e-tailers may have a better knowledge of market demand information compared to upstream manufacturers in the supply chain.Therefore,in the context of an e-tailer possessing market demand information and using it for providing sales services,it is worth addressing the important questions of whether the e-tailer would choose to share demand information with upstream manufacturers and what factors would have impacts on the e-tailer’s demand information sharing strategy selections.In the supply chain led by an e-tailer,this dissertation investigates the issues of the e-tailer’s demand information sharing strategy selection of whether the demand information should be shared with upstream manufacturers and the impacts of some key factors on the strategy selection,such as risk-averse behavior,different contract patterns,and product competition.The details are as follows.First,in a supply chain containing one manufacturer and one e-tailer,and supposing that the e-tailer has more accurate demand information than the manufacturer,this dissertation investigates the demand information sharing strategy selection of the e-tailer,i.e.,whether the e-tailer should share the demand information with the manufacturer or not.The two members of the supply chain cooperate through an agency contract.In the situation where the e-tailer provides sales services and the manufacturer exhibits risk-averse behavior,this dissertation considers two scenarios:the scenario where the e-tailer shares demand information with the manufacturer and the scenario where the e-tailer does not share information.The optimal decisions of the supply chain members and the demand information sharing strategy selections of the e-tailer are obtained through a comparative analysis of the two scenarios.The results show that,firstly,in the scenario of information non-sharing,both the retail price and the level of sales service decrease when the degree of the manufacturer’s risk aversion rises.Next,the demand information accuracy of the e-tailer and the risk-averse behavior of the manufacturer affect the value of information sharing among supply chain members.Finally,the demand information sharing strategy selection of the e-tailer is related to the risk-averse behavior of the manufacturer.To be specific,the e-tailer prefers to select the information sharing strategy when the degree of the manufacturer’ s risk aversion is low or high;otherwise,the e-tailer prefers to select the information non-sharing strategy.Second,in a supply chain containing one manufacturer and one e-tailer,and considering two contract patterns,i.e.,resale or agency,between the two supply chain members,this dissertation studies the situation of whether the e-tailer provides sales services and the issue of strategic selection of whether the e-tailer shares demand information with the manufacturer.Under resale and agency contracts,the optimal decisions of the supply chain members and the demand information sharing strategy selections of the e-tailer are obtained by comparatively analyzing various scenarios,including whether the e-tailer provides sales services and whether the e-tailer shares demand information.The results show that,firstly,the e-tailer prefers to provide sales services under the resale contract;however,whether the e-tailer provides sales services under the agency contract is related to the efficiency of sales services.Next,the e-tailer prefers not to share demand information with the manufacturer under the resale contract,but the e-tailer prefers to share demand information under the agency contract.Then,the selection of demand information sharing strategy under different contract patterns for the e-tailer is related to many factors,including the commission ratio,sales service efficiency,and information accuracy.Finally,given the selection of the demand information sharing strategy for the e-tailer,a win-win Pareto region for both the etailer and the manufacturer can be derived under certain conditions.Third,in a competitive supply chain containing two manufacturers and one e-tailer,the two manufacturers use resale and agency contracts to cooperate with the e-tailer,respectively.This dissertation investigates the strategic selection issue of whether the e-tailer shares demand information with the manufacturers.Three scenarios are developed,namely,the e-tailer does not share information,the e-tailer shares information with one manufacturer,and the e-tailer shares information with two manufacturers.By comparing these three scenarios,the optimal decisions of the supply chain members and the demand information sharing strategy selections of the e-tailer in each scenario are obtained.The results show that,firstly,the e-tailer prefers the strategy of sharing demand information with the manufacturer who uses the agency contract.Next,the impacts of the demand information sharing strategies of the e-tailer on the two manufacturers are related to the contract patterns they use.In particular,the manufacturer with the resale contract makes the highest expected profit under the strategy where the e-tailer shares demand information with both manufacturers,while the manufacturer with the agency contract makes the highest expected profit under the strategy where the e-tailer shares demand information only with itself or with both manufacturers.Finally,this dissertation also discusses an incentive contract in which the manufacturers pay the e-tailer to obtain demand information in the extended section and finds that the incentive contract can achieve a win-win situation for the supply chain members and obtain the Pareto optimal region under the strategy of sharing demand information between the e-tailer and the two manufacturers.Fourth,in a competitive supply chain containing two manufacturers and one etailer,considering a situation where the manufacturers can use demand information to adjust pricing and production decisions,this dissertation investigates the issue about the e-tailer’s strategic selection whether he should share demand information with manufacturers.Three scenarios are developed,namely,the e-tailer does not share information,the e-tailer shares information with one manufacturer,and the e-tailer shares information with two manufacturers.Through the comparative analysis of these three scenarios,the optimal decisions of the supply chain members and the demand information sharing strategy selections of the e-tailer in each scenario are obtained.The results show that,firstly,the selection of demand information sharing strategy of the etailer is related to the sales service efficiency threshold,which is determined by some key parameters,such as the information accuracy of the e-tailer and the informationdirected production coefficient of the manufacturers.When the sales service is more efficient,the e-tailer selects the strategy of sharing demand information with one manufacturer;when the sales service is less efficient,the e-tailer selects the strategy of sharing demand information with two manufacturers.Next,the impacts of different demand information sharing strategies on the manufacturers are related to their information-directed production costs.When the information-directed cost is low,the strategy of sharing demand information between the e-tailer and the two manufacturers is most beneficial to the manufacturer;when the information-directed cost is high,the strategy of sharing demand information between the e-tailer and the competing manufacturer is most beneficial to the manufacturer.Finally,numerical experiments reveal that when the e-tailer shares demand information with the two manufacturers,it can achieve a win-win situation for supply chain members and obtain the Pareto region.In the supply chain led by an e-tailer,this dissertation investigates the e-tailer’s demand information sharing strategies selections and considers the impacts of members’risk-averse behavior,different contract patterns,and upstream product competition on the selection of demand information sharing strategies for the e-tailer.The issues and the conclusions from this dissertation not only enrich the research related to the selection of demand information sharing strategies in the field of supply chain management but also provide suggestions for the decision making of supply chain members in practice.