Research On Inventory Pooling Strategy And Coordination Mechanism In Omni-channel Retailing

With the popularization of mobile Internet technology and the continuous upgrade of consumer demand,omni-channel retailing that can provide consumers with a seamless shopping experience has become increasingly popular in recent years.As a new business model,omni-channel retail uses various channels to interact with customers and fulfill its orders,which can greatly stimulate consumers’ shopping needs and bring a development trend for enterprises.However,the implementation of the full retail channel model of online and offline interaction poses a huge challenge to enterprises.Taking the omni-channel retail model of the company’s implementation of "buy online,store shipment" and "buy online,pick up in store" strategies as examples,the difficulties faced by the company include:(1)Retailers need to store enough offline physical stores to store enough Products to meet the needs of omnichannel consumers,but due to the limited physical store space and high storage and labor costs,the cost of retailer inventory management will increase;(2)it is difficult for companies to evaluate and implement "buy online,store shipment" and "buy online,pick up in store" omnichannel strategies on corporate profits;(3)which cooperation mechanism is used between different channels to incentivize physical stores and online stores to work together to maximize overall revenue Turn it into a goal and maximize the omnichannel revenue.Based on this,this research takes Uniqlo’s existing omni-channel retail model as the research background.In the retail-led omni-channel retail,consider that the retailer has both a physical store,an online store and a mobile store.Strategy,that is,the omnichannel inventory sharing operation mode under "buy online,store shipment" and "buy online,pick up in store".Considering the random demand,based on the newsboy model,the optimal inventory level decision of the physical store and the optimal profit of the entire channel are discussed based on the omni-channel centralized decision and decentralized decision.Finally,a revenue-sharing contract mechanism was constructed to explore whether the mechanism can achieve channel coordination and maximize channel profit.The research results show that:(1)Under decentralized decision-making,the optimal inventory level of physical stores is always greater than the equilibrium inventory level of physical stores under centralized decision-making;and the revenue of physical stores gradually decreases as the unit inventory cost of physical stores increases.The store’s revenue gradually increases with the increase in unit inventory costs of physical stores.(2)Compared with omni-channel profits under decentralized decision-making,total omni-channel profits under centralized decision-making are always higher.(3)After the introduction of the channel revenue sharing contract,the retailer can guide the physical store to make the optimal inventory level decision according to the goal of omni-channel profit maximization,so that the profit under the decentralized decision can reach the profit under the centralized decision.