考虑消费者策略行为的供应商产品升级策略

Upgrade Strategies in The Presence of Strategic Consumers

随着科技的发展和市场竞争的加剧,企业不断频繁地进行产品升级更新以应对消费者快速变化的需求;同时,消费者也越来越具有策略性行为,主要表现为跨期选择购买产品的类型和时机。本文考虑消费者策略行为研究供应链上游供应商的最优产品升级策略,分析捆绑、模块化和整合三种产品升级策略中消费者的购买决策和供应链企业的均衡定价决策。研究表明：当消费者耐心程度和升级模块的价值升级系数满足一定条件时,供应商将选择模块化升级策略,相对于捆绑升级策略,将获得更高的利润;而只有当消费者耐心程度较小时,采用整合升级策略相对于其他两种升级策略更有利于提高利润。

With the developing of science and technology,to compete for market share and increase revenue,manufacturers and retailers in durable goods industries introduce new upgraded products continuously and phase out old products frequently.However,those firms may face the challenges from forward-looking consumers who anticipate product improvement and seek to delay their purchase.So,it is interesting to investigate the suppliers＇ optimal upgrade strategy in the presence of consumers＇ strategic behavior through analyzing the two-period decisions optimization problem of consumers and firms in supply chain.Three upgrade strategies are analyzed：bundling upgrade strategy,component upgrade strategy and conformable upgrade strategy.In each strategy,the rational players make decisions by three stages during two periods.The supplier determines the unit wholesale price of the first-period new products in stage 1,period 1,and the price of the second-period products in stage 1,period 2.Then,the retailer decides the retailing price of products in stage 2,period 1 and period 2.At last,the strategic consumers make decisions of purchase in stage 3,period 1 and 2.By solving the two-stage complete information dynamic game backward,the optimal price decisions of firms could be got.With the target of profit maximization,it is found that the supplier prefers the components upgrade strategy to other strategies with the conditions of value loss of components upgrade and the patience of strategic consumers;otherwise,he or she will adopt the integration strategy,when the patience of strategic consumers is relatively low.Numerical studies are carried out to investigate the effect of supplier＇s upgrade strategy on retailer and supply chain＇s profit and to examining the key parameters＇ influences on the equilibrium solutions and firms＇ performances.