Pricing decision of a dual-channel supply chain with different payment, corporate social responsibility and service level

¹ College of Economics and Management, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266590, P.R. China
² School of Management, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, P.R. China

^* Corresponding author: xin@sdust.edu.cn

Received: 8 April 2021
Accepted: 16 December 2021

Abstract

Strategies such as price, CSR, and service have an important impact on enterprises and supply chains. This paper proposes a two-echelon dual-channel supply chain composed of a manufacturer and a retailer. Considering the product pricing, CSR level, and service level in the supply chain, this paper employs the Stackelberg game to depict supply chain participants’ optimal decisions and analyze the influence of explanatory variables on the optimal decision with retailer’s payment methods. The results state that market share, service level, CSR, and financing interest rate significantly impact the pricing decision of all participants in the supply chain. In addition, strategies of CSR level and service level are also affected by the discount rate of advance payment, financing interest rate, return on investment, and opportunity cost rate. This paper incorporates CSR and service level into the objective function, considers a variety of retailers’ payment methods, enriches the supply chain’s pricing model, and is of great value to scientific decision-making of enterprises and sustainable development of supply chains.