Supply Chain Optimized Strategies in the Mode of External Financing

In the circumstance that market demand is uncertain, it studies the decision-making problem of supply chain financial system consisting of the single supplier, a capital constraint retailer and a bank. Considering the mode of external financing, we obtain the optimal order decision of the capital constraint retailer, the optimal financing rate and the optimal wholesale price of the supplier and analyze the effects of owned capitals of retailer on the optimized decision-making of supply chain financial system. At last, it demonstrates the effectiveness of conclusion by numerical examples

Managing product variety on online platform: Consumer heterogeneity and diseconomies of scope.

Recent innovations in e-commerce have led to the emergence of online retailing platforms, where millions of products are sold. Most of these products are sold by third-party sellers who pay a fee for the e-retailer (called the platform owner). We investigate how the e-retailer manages the various products in the presence of consumer heterogeneity and diseconomies of scope. Our analytical results indicate that the e-retailer prefers the platform-selling mode when consumers have stronger heterogeneity or when the value of a product is high; moreover, the consumer heterogeneity benefits the e-retailer and hurts the supplier. We also analyze the effect of the relationship of among categories on the e-retailer's choice. We show that the relationship among categories can invert the existing format. In addition, we find that the e-retailer may be better off and raise the number of products under strong diseconomies of scope when the categories are complements, and the opposite is true when the categories are substitutable

Effort Levels of Capital-constrained Retailer under Bank Financing

In a supply chain with a retailer confronted with financial constraints, impacts on profits of the supply chain can be alleviated by increasing the retailer’s efforts and market demand through external financing (bank). If the cost of bank lending is not very high, the capital-constrained retailer can borrow money and make efforts. The reduction of bank interest rates, however, increases the retailer's efforts. We prove that there is a unique equilibrium point between the retailers. We find out the optimal interest rate of the bank and the optimal efforts by the retailer through numerical analysis and verify validity of the results

Policy of Government Subsidy for Supply Chain with Poverty Alleviation

Government subsidy is a common practice in poverty alleviation. We used game theory and the mathematical model of operations management to investigate the efficiency of subsidy with different poverty scales when the firm owns the decision power of the wholesale price. Comparative analysis of the equilibrium solutions demonstrated the following results: Exclusive subsidy has a significant effect on the payoff of the poor farmer, but the dilemma is that the increase in the payoff of the poor farmer is against the payoff decrease of the regular farmer. Sharing subsidy has a counterbalancing effect on the payoff of the poor and regular farmers. Co-subsidy is the best for consumer surplus and social welfare, but it has little effect on improving the poor farmer’s payoff. Generally, when the poor farmers are in the majority, sharing subsidies or co-subsidy is more reasonable than exclusive subsidy. When the poor farmers are in the minority, exclusive or sharing subsidies will be more economical for the government than co-subsidy. Our research helps the government recognize that spending more money may achieve a poor result in poverty alleviation and help the firm realize that it is better to give more subsidies to the poor farmer than to itself. The highlights of the paper are as follows. Firstly, our work provides a new perspective in supply chain operations management with poverty alleviation by considering the participation of the poor and regular farmers together; secondly, the poverty scale is introduced into the mathematical model; thirdly, we pay attention to the impact of government subsidy to enterprise on the payoff of the poor farmer

Policy of Government Subsidy for Supply Chain with Poverty Alleviation

Government subsidy is a common practice in poverty alleviation. We used game theory and the mathematical model of operations management to investigate the efficiency of subsidy with different poverty scales when the firm owns the decision power of the wholesale price. Comparative analysis of the equilibrium solutions demonstrated the following results: Exclusive subsidy has a significant effect on the payoff of the poor farmer, but the dilemma is that the increase in the payoff of the poor farmer is against the payoff decrease of the regular farmer. Sharing subsidy has a counterbalancing effect on the payoff of the poor and regular farmers. Co-subsidy is the best for consumer surplus and social welfare, but it has little effect on improving the poor farmer’s payoff. Generally, when the poor farmers are in the majority, sharing subsidies or co-subsidy is more reasonable than exclusive subsidy. When the poor farmers are in the minority, exclusive or sharing subsidies will be more economical for the government than co-subsidy. Our research helps the government recognize that spending more money may achieve a poor result in poverty alleviation and help the firm realize that it is better to give more subsidies to the poor farmer than to itself. The highlights of the paper are as follows. Firstly, our work provides a new perspective in supply chain operations management with poverty alleviation by considering the participation of the poor and regular farmers together; secondly, the poverty scale is introduced into the mathematical model; thirdly, we pay attention to the impact of government subsidy to enterprise on the payoff of the poor farmer