Abstract: With the rapid development of community economy and information technology, the shortening of product update cycle has caused a rapid change in consumer demand. This means that consumer demand isuncertain and random. Closer to retail market, retailers are able to access consumer information and analyze real market demand through bearing the corresponding expenses. However, manufacturers usually are away from the retail market, so they are not capable of obtaining real market demand and only know the distribution of stochastic demand. In single-channel supply chain setting, some researchers have pointed out that it is optimal for retailer not to share real retail demand information with manufacturers. On the other hand, with the development of platform economy, many manufacturers introduce online direct channels to directly sell their product in addition to traditional retail channels. Online direct channels cause channel conflict and competition, which usually hurts retailers. In such case, manufacturers have become competitors for retailers. Thus, in a dual-channel supply chain setting, is it also optimal for retailers to share demand information with manufacturers. Retailers must focus on the issue of whether to share demand information with manufacturers.
In a dual-channel supply chain system, the manufacturer has multiple ordering modes to directly sell its product in the online direct channel. One is that the manufacturer can choose to determine the direct channel's sale quantity before the retailer determines ex-ante entry mode, and the other is as the same time as simultaneous entry mode the retailer sets the retail channel's sale quantity. Thus, which ordering mode should the manufacturer choose to maximize its profits?
To answer the above questions, this paper considers the two-level supply chain consisting of a single manufacturer and a single retailer based on stochastic demand. The manufacturer determines the order quantity of the direct sales channel in ex-ante entry mode or simultaneous entry mode. The retailer obtains the real market demand information by paying the fixed cost, but the manufacturer only knows the demand's distribution. Firstly, this paper discusses the optimal ordering decisions for the two partners and the condition under which the retailer is willing to obtain demand information and share it with the manufacturer given one of two modes, and analyzes the impact of the fixed cost on the optimal decisions information share strategy. Next, this paper discusses the optimal entry mode from the perspective of the manufacturer and retailer, respectively.
The results show as follows. (1)Given the ordering mode of direct sales channels, whether retailer obtains demand information depends on the acquisition cost. If the acquisition cost is not high, the retailer chooses to acquire information but not share it with the manufacturer, which means that the retailer can benefit from private demand information. If the acquisition cost is high, retailer chooses not to acquire demand information. (2)When the acquisition cost is low, even if the manufacturer bears the acquisition cost, the retailer is not willing to share demand information, because the information value is higher than the acquisition cost. The retailer is willing to share information unless the manufacturer bears the acquisition costs and gives part of information value subsidies to the retailer. When the acquisition cost is higher than the value of information, the cost-sharing contract becomes invalid. When the acquisition cost is moderate, the retailer can share demand information with the manufacturer if the manufacturer bears part of the acquisition cost, and the acquisition-cost-sharing contract can achieve Pareto improvement of both parties' profits. (3)The ex-ante entry mode is always optimal for the manufacturer. Under the strategy of not obtaining or obtaining and sharing information, the ex-ante entry mode is also optimal for the retailer. However, when the coefficient of variation of market size is not too small, that is, the deviation of market size is large or the average market size is small, the simultaneous entry mode is optimal for the retailer under the strategy of obtaining but not sharing information.

Key words: channel entry, information acquisition, information sharing, cost sharing, Pareto improvement

摘要： 考虑单制造商和单零售商组成的双渠道供应链,基于随机需求建立制造商可以在零售商确定订货量之前(先进模式)或与零售商同时(同进模式)确定直销渠道订货量、零售商可通过支付固定成本来获取真实市场需求的订货量博弈模型。首先在两种模式下研究了零售商愿意获取信息并分享给制造商的条件,结果表明当获取成本较高时,零售商不会获取信息;否则零售商会获取信息但不分享给制造商,此时制造商可通过成本分担和信息价值补贴合约来实现双方利润的帕累托改进。随后讨论了渠道进入模式选择策略,结果表明制造商总是选择先进模式,而只要需求的变异系数不是很小,同进模式对零售商更有利。

关键词: 渠道进入, 信息获取, 信息共享, 成本分担, 帕累托改进