Study On Omnichannel Retail Operations With Consumer Preference

With the rapid development of e-commerce and the continuous upgrading of consumer demand,more and more consumers want to be able to freely switch between online and offline channels and purchase through mobile terminals anytime and anywhere,which brings continuous impact to the traditional retail industry.To cope with this challenge,traditional retailers have integrated their online and offline retail channels and implemented omnichannel retail strategies to provide consumers seamless shopping experience,so as to better meet the growing needs of consumers and further consolidate their market position.Omnichannel retail mode influences the purchase behavior of consumers as well as the order fulfillment mode of retailers.There are two common strategies that omnichannel retailers can adopt when facing stockout in a certain channel,namely“Ship form store" and "Ship to store",to avoid the loss of consumers.However,the existing researches on omnichannel retail mainly focused on the omnichannel retail model of "Buy online pick up in store,BOPS",and few scholars have studied the influence of these two omnichannel retail strategies of "Ship from store" and "Ship to store" on consumers' purchasing behavior and retailers' operation strategy.Therefore,based on the application of these two omnichannel retail modes,this paper analyzes the impact of these two strategies on consumers' purchasing behavior and retailer's decisions on pricing and ordering strategies to ascertain the precondition for retailers to introduce omnichannel retail modes.Considering consumers' preference in channel selection,this paper first explores the implementation of a dual-channel retailer's omnichannel retail strategy with Ship form store option(SFS),and studies the influence of SFS option on retailer's pricing and ordering strategies by using newsvendor model.By comparing with the dual-channel mode,we find that retailer's pricing strategy will not change and the expected profit increase under the omnichannel retail strategy with SFS option.Additionally,the implementation of the SFS option will reduce the total order quantity of retailer.Specifically,the inventory quantity in store increases while the inventory in online channel decrease.Furthermore,retailers may not always be able to improve their profits by introducing the SFS option when the inventory cost of each channel and external market conditions change.Then,the introducing of another omnichannel retail strategy,i.e.,Ship to store(STS),will be studied with the consideration of consumers' preference in channel selection and the choice of STS option for the dual-channel retailer.We develop a newsvendor model to analyze the impact of STS option on retailer's pricing and ordering strategies.Through the analysis and comparison of the equilibrium solution of different strategies,we find that the retailer's expected profit increases without changing the retail price when the STS option is introduced.Secondly,under the omnichannel retail strategy,the retailer's optimal order quantity in store decreases,while the optimal order quantity in online channel increases and the total order quantity decreases.However,as the market conditions and the retailer's inventory costs change,the omnichannel retail strategy with STS option may no longer be effective.From the perspective of individual consumer behavior decision making,this dissertation studies the influence of two common omnichannel retail modes on consumers' behavior and retailer's optimal operation decision by using game theory.The research content is frontier,which enriches the related research of omnichannel retail.In addition,this work identifies the decision conditions for retailer to implement these two omnichannel retail strategy,and the relevant research results can provide theoretical basis and decision reference for retailers.