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Decision makers’ behavioral preferences have always been important in coordinating the supply chain. Decision makers need to choose a partner wisely to increase the profitability of the entire supply chain, especially in the competitive e-commerce environment. In this paper, we examine a two-echelon e-commerce supply chain with one retailer and one supplier using the most popular wholesale price contract to facilitate collaboration. Traditional research has shown that the classical expectation model cannot coordinate the supply chain. We apply the focus theory of choice to describe the retailer’s behavior as a follower, and we examine the impact of the retailer’s pricing decisions on the supplier under different focus preferences and the coordination for the entire supply chain. The lower the parameter φ, which represents the degree of positivity, and the higher the parameter κ, which represents the level of confidence, the closer the profit of the whole supply chain is to the coordination result—both are visualized through numerical experiments and images. In the case of φ determination, the lower the κ, the better the supply chain coordination. The finding implies that the retailer may be able to coordinate the supply chain and produce better results than the expectation model when he or she makes choices using a positive evaluation system that includes both higher levels of optimism and lower levels of confidence. The findings of the FTC model can simultaneously offer a theoretical foundation for expanding collaboration among supply chain participants and management insights for decision makers to choose cooperation partners.

In order to solve the problem of separation between consumer purchase and product experience in online sales, live streaming e-commerce came into being. However, the interaction of streamers is easy to cause consumers’ impulse consumption, which leads to the soaring return rate. In this context, how to make reasonable return policies to avoid the loss is an important issue for brands. This paper studies return policy selection for brands. We mainly focus on MCN (multi-channel network) click farming and customer disappointment aversion in the situations that the return-freight insurances are paid by brands or consumers or brands and MCN jointly. Three leader-follower models with brands as leaders and platforms and MCN as followers are established. To solve the above bilevel models, we discuss the conditions under which the upper and lower models are both convex and, based on these theoretical results, we give the optimal strategies for all members. Then, through numerical experiments, we analyze the impacts of customer disappointment aversion level, MCN’s ability, commission rate, brand’s return-freight insurance purchasing ratio, and other factors on each member’s optimal decision. The results show that the return policy in the situation of return-freight insurance paid by brand is suitable for a market with the high level of customer disappointment aversion; the return policy in the situation of return-freight insurance paid by consumers is applicable to the case of low customer disappointment aversion and high commission rate; the return policy in the situation of return-freight insurance paid by brand and MCN jointly is suitable for the case of low MCN capability and can effectively restrain the click farming from MCN.

This paper considers the agency selling channel in a supply chain under platform service investment. We construct Stackelberg game models to study the impact of the manufacturer’s encroachment strategy on supply chain members. Research results indicate that the encroachment strategy always has a positive impact at the levels of the manufacturer and platform service, which should dynamically change in response to the manufacturer’s action; the platform may actively implement a service strategy without encroachment, while the platform should be cautious in providing services to avoid backlash when encroachment occurs; the high commission rate may prompt the platform to increase the service effort and hinder manufacturer encroachment; when the channel substitution rate is high, both the manufacturer and platform may suffer from it and hence they should slow down their strategy implementation and consider cooperation; when the elasticity coefficient is large and the service cost is high, it may hinder the platform from providing services and the manufacturer may take the opportunity to encroach and thus seize the market.

As a useful strategy to improve the flexibility of the system to manage uncertainty in supply and demand and to improve the sustainability of the supply chain, vendor-managed inventory (VMI) programs have attracted widespread attention in the field of supply chain management. However, a growing body of empirical literature has shown that participants’ decisions deviate significantly from the standard theoretical predictions. Under a VMI program, the supplier bears not only the production cost, but also the risk of leftover inventory. Moreover, the inequality among participants and different personalities of decision-makers in VMI programs may lead to the divergence of decision-making. To understand the supplier’s replenishment decision in view of the behavioral pattern, we propose a new inventory model for the supplier with the focus theory of choice. The proposed model conceives that the retailer evaluates each replenishment quantity based on the most salient demand for him/her instead of calculating the expected utility. By employing this inventory model, we construct a two-tier supply chain model with revenue-sharing contract and theoretically derive the optimal sharing percentage of the revenue and replenishment quantity. Results analysis gains managerial insights into the strategic selection of the retailer who faces suppliers with different personalities. Comparisons between the classic revenue-sharing contract model and the proposed model are also carried out by illustrative examples. This research provides a new perspective to analyze individual supplier’s behavior in a VMI program with revenue-sharing contracts.

This paper investigates a retailer-leading two-tier supply chain with a buyback contract under market demand uncertainty, where the retailer first announces a potential maximal order quantity and the supplier then provides a unit wholesale price to influence the retailer’s order quantity. In recent years, an increasing number of experimental studies have reported that even in repeated multi-turn games, the decisions of suppliers viewed as newsvendors deviate significantly from the expectation-maximizing options. In light of this observation, we employ the focus theory of choice to characterize suppliers’ behavioral tendencies and theoretically derive optimal unit wholesale prices based on suppliers’ focus preferences. With these results, we further explore how suppliers’ foci may influence the interactions between the retailer and the supplier. We find that when the supplier takes the positive evaluation system as the decision criterion, optimism degree and confidence level have a negative effect on the wholesale price and a positive effect on the final order quantity, and the final order quantity must be located between the most possible market demand and the upper limit of the market demand. This paper provides a behavioral perspective to analyze suppliers’ optimal responses and their influences on retailers’ decision-making. Theoretical and numerical analyses gain managerial insights for retailers to make decisions when faced with suppliers with different focus preferences.

This paper considers a sales mode selection problem between resale and agency modes on e-commerce platforms for a manufacturer with traditional retail channel, direct selling channel, and e-commerce platform channel. By considering the factors price competition, market shares, and commission rate, we construct two leader-follower models with the manufacturer as a leader and traditional retailer and e-commerce platform as followers. To obtain optimal solutions, we discuss the conditions under which the upper and lower models are convex and then give optimal strategies for all members in the network. Through numerical experiments, we analyze the impact of price competition intensity, market shares, and commission rate on mode selection strategies and the changing trend of each member’s optimal pricing and profit under different sales modes. The numerical results reveal the following revelations: If the market share of the traditional retail channel is lower than the direct selling channel, the manufacturer should choose the agency mode when the market share of the direct selling channel and price competition are lower or when the market share of the direct selling channel together with the price competition and the commission rate is higher; otherwise, the manufacturer should choose the resale mode. If the market share of the direct selling channel is lower than the traditional retail channel, the manufacturer should choose the agency mode when the price competition is weak and choose the resale mode when the price competition is strong. Under certain conditions, a win–win situation can be achieved no matter how the manufacturer chooses.

With the growth of China's aesthetic-medicine market and the rising demand for strong efficacy, Chinese consumers are passionate about acidic care, and it has become a cosmetic that can be used every day. Under the Chinese cosmetics regulations, the acid cosmetics used by consumers are low-concentration products. So far, research has focused on high-content acids, and there are very few studies on low-content acids. The customers targeted by acid cosmetics in China are mainly those with acne-prone skin and normal skin. The purpose of this study is to see if there is a difference in efficacy between normal and acne-prone skin when using a 5% gluconolactone facial mask for four weeks. Changes in the redness of acne-prone skin due to acne improvement after using 5% gluconolactone facial mask were clearly different from normal skin, and other barrier-related parameters changed similarly by skin type. A 5% gluconolactone formulation benefits daily routines by strengthening the skin barrier and is suitable for daily use in both normal and acne-prone skin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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