Joint Innovation Investment and Pricing Decisions in Retail Supply Chains with Customer Value

In the retail industry, customer value has become the key to maintaining competitive advantages. In the era of new retail, customer value is not only affected by the product price, but it is also closely related to innovations, such as value-added services and unique business models. In this paper, we study the joint innovation investment and pricing decisions in a retailer-supplier supply chain based on revenue sharing contracts and customer value. We first find that, in the non-cooperative game, equilibrium only exists in the supplier Stackelberg game. However, revenue sharing contracts cannot coordinate the supply chain in the non-cooperative game. By considering supply chain members' bargaining power, we find that there exists a unique equilibrium for the Nash bargaining product. In addition, revenue sharing contracts can coordinate the supply chain and achieve the optimal consumer surplus. When the supply chain is coordinated, supply chain profit is allocated to the supply chain members based on their bargaining powers.

Automated summary

Customer value is crucial in maintaining competitive advantages in the retail industry, influenced by factors like product price and innovation. Revenue sharing contracts are ineffective in coordinating the supply chain in a non-cooperative game, but a unique equilibrium can be found through Nash bargaining, leading to optimal consumer surplus.