基于产品质量差异的资金约束制造商最优融资决策研究

The research on optimal financing decision for capital-constrained manufacturer considering product quality differentiation

本文研究了资金约束制造商在线上线下双渠道中分别销售两种不同质量水平的产品时的最优融资决策,其中制造商可以通过电商平台融资和零售商融资两种方式来缓解资金压力。本文建立了两种融资模式下的Stackelberg博弈模型,得到了制造商与零售商的最优定价决策以及融资利率和双渠道中的产品质量差异对均衡决策的影响;对比分析了两种融资模式下的价格、销量以及供应链各成员企业的利润差异。结果表明融资利率的上升会带来双渠道定价的上升,但不一定会加剧双渠道间的价格竞争。制造商的最优融资决策同时受融资利率、消费者对产品质量的敏感程度以及双渠道产品质量差异的影响。当电商平台融资和零售商融资利率相同且消费者对产品质量的敏感程度较低时,制造商会选择零售商融资,并在零售商处销售高质量产品;当消费者对产品质量的敏感程度较高且双渠道产品质量差异较大时,制造商则会选择电商平台融资并在电商平台投放高质量产品。

With the development and popularity of e-commerce,many manufacturers choose to sell their products not only through traditional distribution channels but also through online platforms such as Amazon and Taobao.Additionally,some manufacturers offer different products with different quality in these two channels to satisfy consumers’needs and reduce channel conflict.For example,Dell and Toshiba use Best Buy to sell their high-quality products,such as Alienware and XPS series,but they sell their low-quality products online.In the literature,there is abundant research on optimal pricing and channel selection in the dual-channel supply chain field,but these studies do not consider firms’capital constraints.Extensive exploration in the interface of operation and finance neglects the impact of product quality.When facing capital difficulties and selling different products in different channels,it is important to explore the optimal financing and channel strategies for the capital-constrained manufacturer and to analyze the impact of financing support given by the online platform and retailer.This paper establishes Stackelberg game models to examine the optimal operational and financing decisions in a dual-channel supply chain consisting of one capital-constrained manufacturer(he)and one capital-sufficient retailer(she).The manufacturer sells two heterogeneous products through the online platform and offline retailer,and he only sells one type of products to one channel.The manufacturer has four strategies,namely,e-commerce platform financing with high-quality product sold on e-commerce platform(DP mode),e-commerce platform financing with high-quality product sold to the retailer(RP mode),retailer financing with high-quality product sold on e-commerce platform(DR mode),and retailer financing with high-quality product sold to the retailer(RR mode).Our findings show that the manufacturer’s optimal strategy is affected by customers’sensitivity to product quality,quality difference and the interest rate obtained from either the retailer or the e-commerce platform.First,the equilibria under these four different modes are analyzed.The results show that the selling price in both the online and offline channels is positively affected by the interest rate.However,channel competition does not always increase in all four modes since the impact on pricing of different channels is different.When the interest rate charged by the e-commerce platform is below a certain threshold,the manufacturer will choose DP mode.Otherwise,the manufacturer will choose RP mode.When the quality difference increases,the price gap will become bigger under DP mode but smaller under RP mode.Under retailer financing,the impact of the interest rate on pricing is smaller in RR mode than in DR mode.The sales volume in the online channel is negatively impacted by the interest rate.However,offline sales are not impacted by the interest rate.Second,we compare the optimal solutions under these four modes and find that the online selling price will remain the same under two different financing schemes when the interest rate charged by the e-commerce platform and the retailer is the same,but the retailer’s pricing will be different.Under such circumstances,the price competition will be smaller under retailer financing mode if the quality difference is relatively small or it will be larger otherwise.Additionally,the total sales volume will be larger under retailer financing mode when the manufacturer chooses to sell high-quality products offline.However,the total sales volume may be much larger under e-commerce platform financing if the quality difference is relatively large than a certain threshold when the manufacturer chooses to sell the high-quality products online.Third,we conduct numerical analysis to show the impact of parameters such as the quality difference,consumer’s sensitivity of product quality and the interest rate charged by the e-commerce platform and the retailer on the optimal decisions.When the retailer’s interest rate is equal to the e-commerce platform’s interest rate,we find that the manufacturer will choose retailer financing and sell the high-quality products through the retailer if the market is less concerned about the product quality regardless of the product difference.In contrast,the manufacturer may sell the high-quality products through e-commerce platform when customers prefer high-quality products and the quality difference of these two products is large.In summary,this paper paves the way for future research on capital-constrained manufacturer’s optimal financing and operational decisions when considering product quality in dual-channel supply chain.It complements the literature in supply chain finance and dual-channel supply chain by mainly analysing the impact of different parameters and providing theoretical references for capital-constrained manufacturer’s optimal financing and operational decisions.