质量信息不对称下考虑参考价格效应的灰市供应链定价决策

Price Decision-making in a Gray Market Supply Chain Considering Reference Price Effect under Quality Information Asymmetric

以一个制造商和一个分销商构成的灰市供应链为研究对象,考虑分销商参与灰市投机且灰市消费者购买意愿受参考价格效应影响的情形,探究了产品质量信息不对称对制造商披露策略选择及灰市供应链定价决策的影响。首先,以产品质量信息对称为基准情形,构造了制造商主导的Stackelberg博弈模型,发现存在一个消费者对低价产品估值上限的阈值,使得低于(不低于)该阈值时,灰市存在(不存在)且系统取得内点(边界)均衡。质量信息不对称情形下,无论灰市存在与否,均存在唯一的质量披露阈值,使得制造商披露和隐瞒质量时的利润相等,该阈值大小受低价产品估值上限和参考价格效应强度等因素的影响;灰市存在时,制造商无论选择披露还是隐瞒策略,低价产品估值上限和参考价格效应强度的增加将抑制分销商的灰市投机行为;信息不对称并非一定有利于制造商,当且仅当制造商隐瞒质量信息时,信息不对称可能会使制造商受益;制造商披露质量时,分销商参与灰市投机会对制造商产生不利影响,而隐瞒质量时,分销商是否参与灰市投机对制造商无影响。

The gray market has widely existed in many industries.Due to the lack of after-sales service and commodity reputation of gray products,consumers tend to be more sensitive to product price,and more cautious about product quality when buying gray products.Most of them will take the authorized product price in the high price market as an important price reference point,which results in the reference price effect.In addition,information asymmetry in the supply chain will lead to differences in the acquisition of product quality information between manufacturers and consumers.Therefore,manufacturers often face the choice of disclosing or concealing product quality information.A gray market supply chain composed of a manufacturer and a distributor is taken as the research object.Considering the distributor participates in speculation and the consumers’purchase intention in the gray market is affected by the reference price effect,the influences of product quality information asymmetry on the manufacturer's disclosure strategy choice and the pricing-decision making of the gray market supply chain are explored.Firstly,taking the symmetric quality information as the benchmark,a manufacturer-led Stackelberg game model is constructed.It is found there exists a threshold of the upper limit of consumers'valuation of low-priced products,below(not below)which the gray market exists(does not exist)and the system achieves an interior point(boundary)equilibrium.In the asymmetric information scenario,there exists a unique quality disclosure threshold in the presence or the absence of the gray market,which makes the manufacturer's expected profits equal when disclosing and concealing quality.The threshold is affected by the upper limit of low-priced product valuation and the strength of reference price effect.When the gray market exists,whether the manufacturer chooses disclosure or concealment strategy,the increase of the upper valuation limit of low-priced products and the strength of the reference price effect will inhibit the gray market speculation of distributors.Information asymmetry does not necessarily benefit the manufacturer.It may benefit the manufacturer,only if the manufacturer conceals quality information.The distributor's participation in the gray market speculation will have an adverse effect on the manufacturer when the manufacturer discloses the quality,and while the quality is concealed,whether the distributor participates in the gray market speculation has no effect on the manufacturer.Through numerical simulations,sensitivity analysis of equilibrium solutions is carried out to reference price effect intensity in the case of information symmetry,and manufacturer's quality disclosure strategy and pricing decision under asymmetric information are analyzed.Then,the impacts of quality information asymmetry and distributors'participation in gray market speculation on manufacturer's profit are analyzed.The conclusions of this paper provide theoretical references for exploring the impacts of the quality information asymmetry and the reference price effect on pricing decisions of gray market supply chains,and the choice of manufacturer's disclosure strategy.