考虑策略型消费者后悔行为的易逝品零售商最优库存策略

The optimal inventory policy of perishable retailers considering regret behavior of strategic consumers

易逝品零售商降价销售时,策略型消费者往往会经历高价后悔和缺货后悔,这两种后悔行为均会降低他们的购买效用,从而影响零售商库存决策和利润。因此,本文分别研究了价格外生和内生两种情形下高价后悔和缺货后悔对策略型消费者行为以及零售商库存决策和利润的影响。研究表明,对于高利润产品,零售商应实施瞄准短视型消费者(target myopic consumers,TMC)的策略。相反,对于低利润产品,零售商应实施瞄准短视和策略型消费者(target both myopic and strategic consumers,TBC)的策略。此外,随着高价(缺货)后悔水平的增加,策略型消费者原来认为是低(高)利润的产品,现在可能认为是高(低)利润产品,因此零售商最优策略可能会相应地改变。其次,对于低利润产品,当高价(缺货)后悔显著时,后悔行为对零售商产生负(正)影响,且高价后悔和缺货后悔呈现相反的作用;对于高利润产品,后悔行为不对零售商造成影响。再次,对于低利润产品,高价后悔加剧了(缺货后悔缓解了)策略型消费者行为的负影响;对于高利润产品,后悔行为不影响策略型消费者行为的负影响。最后,当零售商拥有全价决策权时,零售商总是能够利用决策全价的优势来消除高价后悔的负影响或发挥缺货后悔的正影响。

When perishable retailers mark down over two periods,strategic consumers make the decision to buy the product immediately or delay the purchase until the low-price period by weighing the expected utility of purchasing the product in the two periods.Previous studies on strategic consumer behaviour and its impact on the retailer′s inventory decision rarely considered the impact of the regret behaviour of strategic consumers on their purchasing decisions and the retailer′s inventory decision and profit.This paper considers the impact of the regret behaviour of strategic consumers in terms of these aspects.Specifically,when strategic consumers buy products during a high-price period,they experience high-price regret when they see that they could have purchased the product at a low price during a low-price period.On the other hand,when strategic consumers wait until the low-price period,they experience stockout regret because they may not be able to buy the product during the low-price period(i.e.,there is a risk of stockout).Both types of regret behaviour reduce the utility for strategic consumers,thereby affecting their purchasing decisions.Therefore,the regret behaviour for strategic consumers affects the retailer′s inventory decision and profit.There also exists a type of consumer in the market,i.e.,myopic consumers,who only consider current utility in making a decision about whether to buy immediately or not.Therefore,myopic consumers have no regrets.The main research questions for this paper are as follows:When there are both myopic and strategic consumers who have regret behaviour,what should be the retailer′s optimal inventory and profit?When the full price is exogenous,how do high-price and stockout regrets affect strategic consumer behaviour and the retailer′s optimal inventory and profit,respectively?When the full price is endogenous,how do the high-price and stockout regrets affect strategic consumer behaviour and the retailer′s optimal price,inventory,and profit?As a benchmark for comparison,this research first constructs a basic model,i.e.,the retailer′s inventory decision-making model without regret behaviour.Then,the research constructs the retailer′s inventory decision-making model with regret behaviour.Similar to related research,this research applies rational expectations equilibrium theory to describe the game equilibrium between consumers and the retailer.The results show that for high-margin products,retailers should implement a target myopic consumers(TMC)policy;in contrast,for low-margin products,they should implement a target both myopic and strategic consumers(TBC)policy.Second,this paper analyses the impact of high-price and stockout regrets for strategic consumers on the retailer′s optimal inventory and profit.For high-margin products,the regret behaviour for strategic consumers does not affect the retailer′s optimal inventory and profit.However,for low-margin products,high-price regret has a negative impact on the retailer′s optimal inventory and profit,while stockout regret has a positive effect on the retailer′s optimal inventory and profit,i.e.,high-price regret and stockout regret have opposite effects on retailers.In addition,for low-margin products,when high-price regret is significant,regret behaviour has a negative impact on the retailer;in contrast,regret behaviour has a positive impact on the retailer.Third,this paper explores the impact of high-price and stockout regret for strategic consumers on their strategic purchasing behaviour and the selection of the retailer′s optimal inventory policy.For high-margin products,regret behaviour does not have a negative impact on strategic consumer behaviour;however,for low-margin products,high-price regret exacerbates(and stockout regret eases)the negative impact on strategic consumer behaviour.As high-price or stockout regret increases,the retailer′s optimal policy may change accordingly.Specifically,as the high-price regret increases(or the stockout regret decreases),retailers who originally implemented a TBC policy may switch to implementing a TMC policy.On the other hand,as the high-price regret decreases(or as the stockout regret increases),retailers who originally implemented TMC policy may switch to implementing a TBC policy.This is because,in these situations,for a product at a given selling price,strategic consumers originally thought it was a low-margin(high-margin)product but may now think it is a high-margin(low-margin)product.Fourth,this paper discusses the impact of high-price regret,stockout regret,and strategic consumer proportion on the value of regret behaviour.When high-price regret is significant,for low-margin products,regret behaviour has a negative value,and as high-price regret(or stockout regret)increases,the negative value for regret behaviour increases(or decreases),and strategic consumer behaviour increases the negative value of regret behaviour.In contrast,when stockout regret is significant,for low-margin products,regret behaviour has a positive value,and as high-price regret(or stockout regret)increases,the positive value for regret behaviour decreases(or increases);furthermore,strategic consumer behaviour increases the positive value of regret behaviour.However,for high-margin products,regret behaviour has no value.Finally,this paper validates the model with numerical experiments and extends the model to the situation where the retailer has the ability to decide the full price.When retailers have decision-making power for the full price,they can always take advantage of determining the full price to eliminate the negative impact on high-price regret or to exert a positive impact on stockout regret.