Pricing and replenishment decisions for seasonal and nonseasonal products in a shared supply chain

Abstract

This paper examines pricing and replenishment decisions for seasonal and nonseasonal products in a three-echelon shared supply chain. We adopt a time-varying demand function and propose two models (off-season and peak season) for seasonal products, three models for nonseasonal products based on the relative dominance of nonplatform members in the case of the complete information game, and a static Bayesian model in the case of the incomplete information game. For the seasonal products, we find that the chain members should adjust their optimal decisions based on the dominance shifts from the retailer to the factories and the change in the seasonal factor, but for nonseasonal products, the optimal decisions are related only to the channel powers of nonplatform members and not to seasons. In addition, an interesting finding is that the sharing platform's subsidy to the retailer is ineffective under the complete information game, while the subsidy enables the retailer to reduce the retail price and increase the order quantity under the incomplete information game. We also reveal the impacts of some key parameters on the shared chain members.