Abstract: In practice, the supplier would not only grant the retailer delay in payments to stimulate the order quantity, but also set the upper limit for the retailer's accounts payable (i.e., line of credit), thus avoiding the negative effects of the retailer's accounts payable on the supplier's opportunity cost of capital and financial risk. In the context of line of credit, this paper studies the retailer's optimal ordering policy for deteriorating items. By developing the retailer's opportunity cost of capital, the retailer's five different cost functions can be obtained. The derived properties of these five objective functions can be applied to determine the retailer's optimal ordering decisions under line of credit clause. Numerical examples indicate that a reasonable value of line of credit can help the supplier to control the order quantity and the retailer's account payable within an appropriate range. In addition, the line of credit could mitigate the pressure of supplier's working capital, but increase the retailer's average cost to a certain extent.

Key words: delay in payments, line of credit, deteriorating items, ordering policy

摘要： 运作实践中,供应商不仅会给予零售商延期付款待遇以刺激其订购量,同时也会为信用期内零售商的应付账款设置上限值(即商业信用额度),从而规避零售商的应付账款对其造成的资金机会成本和违约风险。鉴于此,本文基于商业信用额度构建了零售商关于易腐品的订购决策模型。通过分析零售商资金机会成本的不同形式,可以得到零售商关于易腐品五种不同的成本函数表达式。结合数学证明可以得到零售商五种目标函数的性质,以及在商业信用额度条款下零售商最优的订购决策。算例表明供应商可以通过设置一个合理的商业信用额度条款将零售商的订购量和信用期内的应付账款控制在一个合适范围。同时商业信用额度条款有助于缓解供应商的营运资金压力,但会在一定程度上增加零售商的运营成本。

关键词: 延期付款, 商业信用额度, 易腐品, 订购策略