Competitive dual-collecting regarding consumer behavior and coordination in closed-loop supply chain

Abstract

Facing multiple collecting channels for used products, consumers may choose the online collection service provided by third-party platforms for convenience, which also brings competition to other channels. To explore the influence of consumer behavior on the competitive dual-collecting supply chain, we build two closed-loop supply chain models with dual-collecting channels: one in which the used products are collected by the retailer and the third-party (model RT) and another in which the used products are collected by the manufacturer and the third-party (model MT). Results show that, with increasing consumer preference to the third-party collecting channel in model RT, the manufacturer’s optimal decisions maintained, while the optimal collecting prices of the retailer and the third-party decrease. In model MT, the manufacturer’s optimal decisions are not affected by consumer preference, but the third-party’s collecting price decreases. In addition, the numerical analysis shows that in both models, the total collecting quantity and the overall profit decrease. Accordingly, we use revenue sharing contracts and two-part tariff contracts to coordinate the reverse channels. We find that the latter one can coordinate both model RT and model MT, while the former one cannot, and besides, the influence of consumer preference on contract parameters is studied.