In this research, two risk hedging strategies, the option contract and the advance purchase discount contract, are investigated within a manufacturer–retailer two-echelon supply chain context. This study offers three contributions. First, the optimal decisions under the two contracts from the perspectives of both the manufacturer and the retailer are determined. Second, circumstances under whic...

Internet shopbots are automated tools that allow customers to easily search for prices and product characteristics from online retailers. Some market observers have predicted that shopbots will benefit consumers at the expense of retailers. In this view, shopbots will radically reduce consumer search costs, reduce retailer opportunities to differentiate their products, and as a result will driv...

This paper considers a dyadic supply chain with uncertain supplier. Both retailer and supplier use continuous review policy. The supplier is randomly available for supplying the retailer. The retailer faces Poisson demands. In this system, lead time is a random variable consists of a constant transportation time plus a random delay occurs due to availability of stock at the supplier. This paper...

Using a duopoly model with symmetric retailers, we show that retailer strategies regarding opening hours and quality choices of goods vary depending on the cost structure of the quality investment in goods. In the case of the cost remaining constant regardless of the length of opening hours, a retailer with longer opening hours chooses higher quality and charges higher prices. Conversely, in th...

In a recent paper, Soni and Shah [Soni, H., Shah, N. H., 2008. Optimal ordering policy for stock-dependent demand under progressive payment scheme. European Journal of Operational Research 184, 91-100] developed a model to find the optimal ordering policy for a retailer with stock-dependent demand and a supplier that offers a progressive payment scheme to the retailer. This note corrects some e...

Trade credit is a well established promotional tool in the present competitive world and its impact on demand cannot be ignored. Businesses often use trade credit to increase their market share and, in turn, the profit. Undoubtedly, trade credit plays a great role in increasing the demand but it also involves a great risk of nonpayment. In order to reduce the risk of non-payment, businessman at...

This paper builds a game-theoretic model to examine the impact of the Internet shopping infomediary on the competition between the product or service supplier’s direct online channel and the independent online multibrand retailer. It is found that by facilitating cross-channel competition, the infomediary may even help the supplier to place its brand on the retailer’s shelf. The main insight is...

We examine a manufacturer’s pricing strategies in a dual-channel supply chain, in which the manufacturer is a Stackelberg leader and the retailer is a follower. We show the conditions under which the manufacturer and the retailer both prefer a dual-channel supply chain. We examine the coordination schemes for a dual-channel supply chain and find that a manufacturer’s contract with a wholesale p...

We consider a variant of the wholesale price-only contract in a simple supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer, where the manufacturer is the Stackelberg leader and the retailer is the follower. In our model, the manufacturer decides the wholesale price first, and then the retailer chooses his order quantity before the stochastic demand is realized but postpones his pricing...

C a retailer who sells perishable seasonal products with uncertain demand. Due to the short sales season and long replenishment lead times associated with such products, the retailer is unable to update demand forecasts by using actual sales data generated from the early part of the season and to respond by replenishing stocks during the season. To overcome this limitation, we examine the case ...