Pricing And Coordination Of A Dual-channel Supply Chain Considering Reference Price And Return Service

With the rapid development of information technology and e-commerce,the development of dual-channel supply chain is becoming mature.More and more manufacturers have opened their own online channels.Under the circumstance that online channels of manufacturers and offline channels of retailers exist at the same time,consumers have more choices.They can use the Internet to obtain relevant information of commodities conveniently,and compare the price and performance of similar commodities in different channels.This has led to increasing channel competition.Price reference factor is an important factor that causes channel contradiction.The rise of online channels urges the birth of consumer reference price effect,which changes the competition between retailers from traditional retail form to online channel and offline retail form competition.In addition,consumers pay more attention to consumption experience and quality in addition to price.Therefore,in order to satisfy consumers,manufacturers’ online sales channels and retail enterprises need to continuously improve their services,among which return service is very important.Based on this,this paper combines prospect theory,game theory and other relevant theories,and uses mathematical modeling and numerical simulation methods to build a dualchannel supply chain consisting of a single leading manufacturer and a single downstream retailer.To study the influence of consumer reference price effect and return service level on the operation of dual-channel supply chain,and to analyze the influence of reference price effect through maple.Finally,considering the return service provided by manufacturers and retailers and the reference price effect,then a two-part pricing contract coordination model is designed,and the optimal decision and fixed cost range under the coordination model are obtained.The study reached a few conclusions:(1)When the dual-channel supply chain only considers the reference price effect,from the perspective of individual enterprises,the enhancement of the reference effect is favorable to manufacturers but unfavorable to retailers;From the perspective of the supply chain as a whole,the enhancement of the reference price effect will also reduce the overall supply chain income.The reference price effect has a significant easing effect on the price competition of manufacturers’ online channels and retailers’ offline channels and reduces the influence of consumers’ channel preferences on these two channels.(2)When the dual-channel supply chain considers the reference price effect and the return service at the same time,although the enhancement of the reference price effect is still harmful to the retailer’s income,the overall profit of the supply chain increases.Under the combined action of return service and reference price effect,the profit of supply chain is improved compared with that when only reference price is considered.(3)When the fixed transfer fee is within a certain range,the two pricing contracts can coordinate the income of manufacturers and retailers.Both manufacturers’ and retailers’ returns after contract coordination are improved compared with those under decentralized decision-making,and the larger the reference price effect,the smaller the rise in returns.