Is More Better? The Divide between Retailer’s and Manufacturers’ Preferences for Reviews and Review Monetization

Research on online product reviews has examined a variety of issues ranging from reviewers’ motivation to write reviews to the impact of reviews on product sales. Implicit in this research stream is the notion that more reviews are better for sellers and consumers. However, it is unclear whether both retailers, who control the review platform, and manufacturers, whose products are reviewed, prefer more reviews over fewer reviews. Using a game theoretical model of a context in which a dominant retailer sells competing products from two manufacturers to consumers who are uncertain about product quality and fit, we show that the retailers’ and manufacturers’ preferences regarding the number of reviews are not always aligned. The nature of misalignment depends on whether the quality or the fit is more dominant in terms of consumers’ evaluation of products. If generating reviews do not cost anything, we found that additional reviews always benefit the retailer; however, if the number of reviews exceeds a threshold in the quality-dominates-fit case scenario, they may be harmful to the manufacturer. On the other hand, if the retailer incurs a sufficiently high cost to generate reviews, the retailer may prefer to have fewer reviews. We show that retailers can exploit the divide between retailers’ and manufacturers’ preferences for reviews and monetize reviews by charging a fee to the manufacturers in return for a guarantee on the number of reviews that they generate. We show that the product type and review platform design play a significant role in the attractiveness of review monetization for retailers. Even if reviews are monetized, we determined that retailers’ revenue from “selling” reviews to manufacturers does not exceed the cost of generating reviews, implying that the benefit from reviews is driven the positive impacts of reviews on the retailer’s core business of selling products to consumers. However, in the fit-dominates-quality case scenario, retailers do not prefer large numbers of reviews whereas manufacturers do. In this case, we found that retailers are unable to exploit the misalignment between retailers’ and manufacturers’ preferences for reviews through review monetization.

Pricing strategy of closed loop supply chain considering different CSR investment modes

More and more companies are beginning to realize that incorporating corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development into supply chain strategies and operations can bring them more competitive advantages. In the case that the manufacturer or retailer performs CSR through profit donation, the pricing decision-making problem of closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) with dominant retailer under different CSR investment modes is studied. The decision-making models of CLSC under the manufacturer’s and retailer’s CSR investment mode are constructed respectively. The conditions for enterprises to fulfil CSR through profit donation and the influence of different CSR investment modes on the pricing of new products and recycling of waste products are discussed. The research shows that no matter what kind of CSR investment mode, only when the consumers are more sensitive to the CSR investment of enterprises, the manufacturer and retailer will fulfil the CSR through profit donation. The CSR investment mode of the manufacturer is more beneficial to consumers, environment, CLSC members and whole system. No matter whether the dominant retailer carries out CSR investment or not, she always obtains more channel profits than the manufacturer.

Beyond the supermarket: analyzing household shopping trip patterns that include food at home and away from home retailers

Background Modifying a household’s food environment by targeting a single retailer type, like supermarkets, has a limited impact on dietary outcomes. This may be because the food environment has a limited impact on shopping behaviors, or because households are not as reliant on supermarkets as we assume. However, our understanding of how households shop for food, especially when considering the use of both food at home (FAH) retailers, such as supermarkets, and away from home retailers (FAFH), such as restaurants, is limited. Thus, understanding how households shop for food is a necessary first step when developing programs to modify food purchasing behavior. Methods K-means cluster analysis was used to identify weekly food shopping trip patterns based on the percentage of trips to FAH and FAFH retailers in the 2013 Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) dataset (n = 4665 households). Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between shopping trip patterns, household and food environment characteristics. Results Three patterns emerged: primarily supermarket, primarily supercenter, or mix (i.e. no dominant retailer type, but high FAFH use). Households with incomes below 185% of the federal poverty line were evenly divided between patterns that rely primarily on FAH retailers, and the mix pattern. While nearly 70% of households with incomes above 185% of the federal poverty line are in the mix cluster. Supermarket and superstore availability significantly influenced the likelihood of belonging to those clusters respectively, while having a child, higher income, and attitudes towards healthy meal preparation time or taste significantly influenced the likelihood of belonging to the mix cluster. Conclusion Although lower-income households are more likely to rely primarily on FAH retailers, household’s, regardless of income, that primarily utilize FAH retailers show a strong preference for either superstores or supermarkets suggesting a need for interventions to reach both retailer types. However, altering the food environment alone may not be sufficient to discourage use of FAFH retailers as households relying on FAFH retailers are significantly influenced by meal preparation time and healthy food taste.

Designing Buy-Online-and-Pick-Up-in-Store (BOPS) Contract of Dual-Channel Low-Carbon Supply Chain considering Consumers’ Low-Carbon Preference

Nowadays, buy-online-and-pick-up-in-store (BOPS) is a popular sales project to promote product sales. Implementing BOPS in the dual-channel low-carbon supply chain (DLSC) can not only improve low-carbon manufacturers’ profit but also reduce energy consumption in it. This paper focuses on how to design the contract which can ensure the implementation of BOPS in the DLSC consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer considering consumers’ low-carbon preference. Based on the analysis of game theory, two kinds of BOPS contract (MW contract with the dominant manufacturer making decision on wholesale price and RW contract with the dominant retailer making decision on wholesale price) with fixed compensation are designed and compared to obtain the better contract which is more effective on the implementation of BOPS. The findings show that MW contract is better than RW contract for the DLSC to implement BOPS. When consumers’ low-carbon preference and BOPS preference and the anti-cross-price elasticity are high enough, the DLSC can implement BOPS under the MW contract because it has Pareto efficiency on the profit of the original DLSC. We further find the sales price is decreasing in consumers’ low-carbon preference and anti-cross-price elasticity, while the wholesale price is increasing in consumers’ low-carbon preference. Finally, the results are verified by numerical examples.

Pricing Decisions on Online Channel Entry for Complementary Products in a Dominant Retailer Supply Chain

This study considered the supply chain that two manufacturers sell green complementary products to a dominant offline retailer. We investigated whether a manufacturer (the integrated manufacturer) should add an online channel and examined how it affects channel members’ decisions and profits. We formulated the power structure as the retailer-Stackelberg model and analyzed the pricing decisions for the supply chain. The results demonstrate that the integrated manufacturer prefers not to add the online channel when online and offline market bases are comparable and the level of complementarity is moderate. The integrated manufacturer gains more power at the expense of the offline retailer and the other manufacturer (the traditional manufacturer) when the complementarity between the offline and online channel is the same as offline channels with the addition of a new online channel; furthermore, the retailer earns less, while the traditional manufacturer’s profit hinges on the complementarity between the online and offline channels. It is beneficial for the offline retailer to balance the online and offline market bases of product 1 by improving the sales environment of the physical store. The integrated manufacturer can benefit from varying their marketing actions to decrease the degree of complementarity between the retail and online channels for the two products, while the traditional manufacturer can be better off from the online channel introduction by taking steps to increase the complementarity of the two products between the offline channels.

A Coordination Mechanism of Supply Chain with a Retailer and Two Competitive Suppliers

To deal with coordination problem of a supply chain consisting of two competitive suppliers and a dominant retailer, considering these factors such as cooperation effort degrees and competition on the supply chain members, we establish a two-stage model considering cooperation effort degrees and competition of the suppliers from the perspectives of decentralized decision and centralized decision and exploit it to discuss the optional decisions and explore the impact of cooperation effort degrees on the profits of supply chain members. Then, we use a group negotiation model to establish a coordination mechanism. The results reveal that the decision variables and overall profit of the supply chain of suppliers and retailers under centralized decisions are better than those under the decentralized decisions. Besides, the degree of competition and price sensitivity have positive and negative effects on the efforts of suppliers and retailers, respectively. Meanwhile, the degree of cooperation between suppliers and retailers affects the profits of supply chain members and the whole supply chain in different degrees. Finally, the proposed value-added profit distribution mechanism can effectively deal with conflict problem and guarantee supply chain members and supply chain to maximize their profits and adopt the centralized decision.