供应链环境下零售商互补产品捆绑销售决策研究

Retailer optimal bundling decision for complementary products in a supply chain

以两个制造商通过一个共同的零售商销售互补产品的供应链为研究对象,考虑产品的交叉弹性对需求的影响,构建基于溢出效应的线性需求模型,运用主从博弈的方法,通过分析和比较不同销售方式下的均衡结果及利润关系,探讨零售商关于互补产品的最优捆绑销售策略。最后通过数值算例的方法讨论产品需求弹性系数、产品互补程度和捆绑产品单位利润等参数对决策结果的影响。研究结果表明:在产品互补程度和捆绑产品单位利润给定的条件下,随着组件产品的需求弹性系数增加或捆绑产品的需求弹性降低时,最优销售策略由混合捆绑策略转向纯捆绑策略。同时,在产品的需求弹性系数均给定的条件下,当产品互补程度较高或捆绑产品单位利润较低时,分开销售是占优策略;当产品互补程度与捆绑产品单位利润均适中时,混合捆绑销售是占优策略;当产品互补程度较低或捆绑产品单位利润较高时,纯捆绑销售是占优策略。

Bundling has been widely used as a popular marketing strategy to maximize profit in many industries.Companies undertake bundling strategies for many reasons,such as extending market power from one product to another,achieving cost savings,reducing pricing inefficiencies,extracting consumer surplus,obtaining economies of scale,and extending marketing power.All of the above reasons have the goal of profit maximization.However,not every company will choose to bundle products in every case.A firm may profit more by selling complementary products separately instead of bundling them.This is because complementary products show negative cross elasticity of demand.For instance,if the price of the main product is set at a relatively low level,the demand for complementary products is more likely to increase.However,when a firm sells a complementary product as a bundle,the effect of negative cross elasticity of demand is eliminated.Hence,for the retailer,there is a trade-off between selling complementary products separately in order to acquire the effect of negative cross elasticity of demand and sell them as a bundle to achieve bundling advantages.Most of existing papers investigate optimal bundling strategies based on the customer value theory,and ignore the influence of negative cross elasticity of demand.Meanwhile,to simplify the analysis many authors discuss the bundling from the retailer’s perspective and take the wholesale price as exogenous variable.The existing study does not consider the impact of upstream manufacturers decisions,such as the wholesale price.This article explores bundling and pricing decisions for two complementary products in a two-echelon supply chain that consists of two manufacturers and one common retailer.Firstly,we employ inverse line demand functions by taking into account the product cross elasticity and spillover effect.A game-theoretical method is used to characterize the corresponding equilibrium outcomes in a decentralized supply chain.Finally,numerical examples are used to highlight factors affecting optimal decision-making as well as valuable.Important managerial insights are summarized.The result indicates that the demand elasticity coefficient,the degree of complementary products and the unit profit of bundled product could exert influence on the retailer optimal bundling and pricing decisions.When the degree of complementary products and the unit profit of bundled product both are obtained,and with the rise of component products demand elasticity coefficient or with the decline of the bundled products demand elasticity coefficient,the retailer’s optimal strategy turns the mixed bundling strategy into pure bundling.Similarly,if the value of demand elasticity coefficient is given,when the degree of complementary products is high or the unit profit of bundled product is low,the pure component is a dominant strategy.When the degree of complementary products and the unit profit of bundled product both are moderate,the mixed bundling is the optimal strategy.When the degree of complementary products is low or the unit profit of bundled product is high,the pure bundling is the optimal strategy.Our findings may provide some evidence for the importance of supporting research on the literatures of bundling and supply-chain management.In the future,a manufacturer-leading and dual-channel supply chain should be introduced to enrich our model.