The Retailer's Information Strategy when Receiving Quality Differentiated Products
Providing heterogeneous products in different channels is an effective measure for manufacturers to alleviate channel conflicts.Different from the most literature focusing on the manufacturers' differentiation strategy,the countermeasures of retailers are investigated when accepting heterogeneous products(especially low-end products).Considering the retailer′s advantages in channel operation and information acquisition,her channel selling strategy is studied under different information structures,then the retailer′s information strategy is proposed.It is shown that:1)Retailers can strategically influence direct selling behavior by taking advantage of first-mover advantages.In particular,when the operating efficiency in the direct channel is low and the potential market size is small,the order quantity can be used as a signal to prevent manufacturers from direct selling.2)The retailer′s information acquisition decision is affected by acquisition cost,product heterogeneity,and direct selling efficiency.In most cases,lower information acquisition costs,lower product heterogeneity,and moderate direct sales channel operating efficiency will lead to higher motivation for information acquisition.3)When the market potential is large or the product heterogeneity is high,both channel members will reach the consensus on information sharing,in which Pareto improvement can be achieved.It not only lays out sugges-tions for retailers to deal with product differentiation,but also provides theoretical guidance for the achievement of supply chain information transparency and Pareto improvement in this paper.
information acquisitioninformation sharingheterogeneous productsdual-channel supply chain
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