基于质量参照效应的双渠道供应链最优决策研究

Research on the optimal decision-making of dual-channel supply chain with reference quality effect

本文考虑消费者对网络直销和传统零售具有不同的质量参照,基于微分博弈构建了质量参照效应下的动态质量和定价模型,获得了价格和产品质量的最优均衡解,分析了质量参照效应对质量以及定价决策的影响。研究结果表明,质量参照效应(记忆系数)与产品质量、零售价格有正(负)相关关系,而与批发价格负(正)相关,从而对制造商利润产生负(正)向影响,而对零售商利润有正(负)向影响。此外,产品质量的最优路径与初始参考质量相关,当初始参考质量大于最优均衡质量时,质量水平递增直到稳态水平;反之,则递减直到稳态水平。

With the rapid development of e-commerce,many manufacturers(such as Apple,Lenovo,etc.)have formed a dualchannel supply chain structure by adopting the online direct selling channels while retaining the traditional retail channels.With the continuous escalation in consumption demand,quality has become an important factor for consumers to make purchase decisions.Before the purchase,consumers tend to get the information of the product quality(e.g.through former buyers’reviews or advertisements,etc.),which will contribute to the consumers’psychological expected quality,then consumers can compare it with the true quality before purchase.Previous studies have proved the impact of the comparison between the true quality of products and the consumers’psychological expected quality on demand,which is the quality reference effect.The existing studies only focus on the quality reference effect in retail channels,and little is known about the influence of the quality reference effect on the optimal decision-making in dualchannel supply chain.This paper studies the dual-channel supply chain decision-making based on the quality reference effect.Our research questions are the following:first,how does the quality reference effect influence the optimal equilibrium pricing and quality decision-making?Next,under dynamic situation,how to achieve the optimal path of wholesale price,retail price and product quality,and what are these dynamic changes?Finally,what are the influences of quality reference effect on the supply chain performance?To address the above questions,we considered a two-echelon supply chain consisting of a single manufacturer and a single retailer based on the differential game theory,in which manufacturer can sell the products to consumers directly online,or through the bricks and mortar retail channels offline.Consumers’expectations for product quality will change over time based on previous experience.And the ways they identify the product quality between online and offline channels are different.Consumers can observe the true quality of products in the physical store,so they choose to purchase when the real quality is greater than the expected reference quality,otherwise not.However,when buying online,the true product quality cannot be known before purchase.Thus,consumers can only form the reference quality through the evaluations of the former buyers,advertising copy,etc.,making the comparison mechanism between real quality and reference quality invalid.In the first part of the model construction,the decision sequence of the manufacturer and the retailer is as follows:the manufacturer is dominant and determines the product quality level,wholesale price and direct sales price first,then the retailer follows to determine the retail price.We adopted backward induction to solve the differential game model.First,the reaction function of retail price was obtained and then substituted into the present value Hamilton function of the manufacturer,thus we obtained the optimal pricing and equilibrium solution of product quality with the quality reference effect.Based on it,we investigated how the quality reference effect coefficient,memory coefficient and elasticity coefficient affect the optimal pricing and the quality decision.Further study was conducted to investigate how product quality and price change over time and what factors will affect them.Thus,the optimal equilibrium paths of wholesale price,retail price and product quality can be obtained and found influenced by the difference between the initial reference quality and the optimal equilibrium product quality.In the second part of the numerical analysis,how the profits of manufacturer,retailer and the total supply chain are affected by the reference quality effect coefficient and the memory coefficient respectively are discussed through numerical simulation.And relevant managerial implications are proposed according to the results of numerical experiments.Our main findings are summarized as follows:based on the differential game with reference quality effect,the dynamic quality and pricing models are presented,and the optimal equilibrium solution of price and product quality is obtained while the impact of reference quality effect on the dual-channel supply chain decision-making is analyzed.The results show that reference quality effect(memory coefficient)has a positive(negative)influence on the product quality and the retail price,but a negative(positive)influence on the wholesale price.Therefore,the reference quality effect(memory coefficient)will damage(benefit)manufacture’s profit and benefit(damage)retailer’s profit.Because the more reference quality effect coefficient increases,the more sensitive consumers are to quality.The manufacturer tends to pay more quality input for this,leading to the loss of profit.Although the retailer will raise the retail price,the cost does not increase.Meanwhile,there will be more and more consumers accepting high quality products of relatively high price,so the retailer’s profit will increase.However,for the products of less consumer sensitivity or loyalty,the result is exactly the opposite.Moreover,the optimal path of quality is related to the initial reference quality.When initial reference quality is higher than the optimal product quality,the manufacturer can take penetration-pricing strategy to reach a steady state finally,that is,to set a low sales price to increase efficiency and market share when entering the market.When the initial reference quality is lower than the optimal product quality,the manufacturer can take skimming-pricing strategy.When new products enter the market,decision makers choose a higher price level.Even if high price leads to a decrease in quantity,this strategy is functional for the new products aiming at customers with strong purchasing power.And it will reach a steady state when the reference quality of consumers increases to the same as the product quality.