管理工程学报2024，Vol.38Issue(4)：251-270,20.DOI:10.13587/j.cnki.jieem.2024.04.017
考虑策略型消费者后悔行为的易逝品零售商最优库存策略
The optimal inventory policy of perishable retailers considering regret behavior of strategic consumers
摘要
Abstract
When perishable retailers mark down over two periods,strategic consumers make the decision to buy the product immediately or delay the purchase until the low-price period by weighing the expected utility of purchasing the product in the two periods.Previous studies on strategic consumer behaviour and its impact on the retailer's inventory decision rarely considered the impact of the regret behaviour of strategic consumers on their purchasing decisions and the retailer's inventory decision and profit.This paper considers the impact of the regret behaviour of strategic consumers in terms of these aspects.Specifically,when strategic consumers buy products during a high-price period,they experience high-price regret when they see that they could have purchased the product at a low price during a low-price period.On the other hand,when strategic consumers wait until the low-price period,they experience stockout regret because they may not be able to buy the product during the low-price period(i.e.,there is a risk of stockout).Both types of regret behaviour reduce the utility for strategic consumers,thereby affecting their purchasing decisions.Therefore,the regret behaviour for strategic consumers affects the retailer's inventory decision and profit. There also exists a type of consumer in the market,i.e.,myopic consumers,who only consider current utility in making a decision about whether to buy immediately or not.Therefore,myopic consumers have no regrets.The main research questions for this paper are as follows:When there are both myopic and strategic consumers who have regret behaviour,what should be the retailer's optimal inventory and profit?When the full price is exogenous,how do high-price and stockout regrets affect strategic consumer behaviour and the retailer's optimal inventory and profit,respectively?When the full price is endogenous,how do the high-price and stockout regrets affect strategic consumer behaviour and the retailer's optimal price,inventory,and profit? As a benchmark for comparison,this research first constructs a basic model,i.e.,the retailer's inventory decision-making model without regret behaviour.Then,the research constructs the retailer's inventory decision-making model with regret behaviour.Similar to related research,this research applies rational expectations equilibrium theory to describe the game equilibrium between consumers and the retailer.The results show that for high-margin products,retailers should implement a target myopic consumers(TMC)policy;in contrast,for low-margin products,they should implement a target both myopic and strategic consumers(TBC)policy. Second,this paper analyses the impact of high-price and stockout regrets for strategic consumers on the retailer's optimal inventory and profit.For high-margin products,the regret behaviour for strategic consumers does not affect the retailer's optimal inventory and profit.However,for low-margin products,high-price regret has a negative impact on the retailer's optimal inventory and profit,while stockout regret has a positive effect on the retailer's optimal inventory and profit,i.e.,high-price regret and stockout regret have opposite effects on retailers.In addition,for low-margin products,when high-price regret is significant,regret behaviour has a negative impact on the retailer;in contrast,regret behaviour has a positive impact on the retailer. Third,this paper explores the impact of high-price and stockout regret for strategic consumers on their strategic purchasing behaviour and the selection of the retailer's optimal inventory policy.For high-margin products,regret behaviour does not have a negative impact on strategic consumer behaviour;however,for low-margin products,high-price regret exacerbates(and stockout regret eases)the negative impact on strategic consumer behaviour.As high-price or stockout regret increases,the retailer's optimal policy may change accordingly.Specifically,as the high-price regret increases(or the stockout regret decreases),retailers who originally implemented a TBC policy may switch to implementing a TMC policy.On the other hand,as the high-price regret decreases(or as the stockout regret increases),retailers who originally implemented TMC policy may switch to implementing a TBC policy.This is because,in these situations,for a product at a given selling price,strategic consumers originally thought it was a low-margin(high-margin)product but may now think it is a high-margin(low-margin)product. Fourth,this paper discusses the impact of high-price regret,stockout regret,and strategic consumer proportion on the value of regret behaviour.When high-price regret is significant,for low-margin products,regret behaviour has a negative value,and as high-price regret(or stockout regret)increases,the negative value for regret behaviour increases(or decreases),and strategic consumer behaviour increases the negative value of regret behaviour.In contrast,when stockout regret is significant,for low-margin products,regret behaviour has a positive value,and as high-price regret(or stockout regret)increases,the positive value for regret behaviour decreases(or increases);furthermore,strategic consumer behaviour increases the positive value of regret behaviour.However,for high-margin products,regret behaviour has no value. Finally,this paper validates the model with numerical experiments and extends the model to the situation where the retailer has the ability to decide the full price.When retailers have decision-making power for the full price,they can always take advantage of determining the full price to eliminate the negative impact on high-price regret or to exert a positive impact on stockout regret.关键词
高价后悔/缺货后悔/策略型消费者行为/易逝品零售商/库存决策Key words
High-price regret/Stockout regret/Strategic consumer behavior/Perishable retailers/Inventory decision分类
管理科学引用本文复制引用
王桦,白春光,张冲,石纯来..考虑策略型消费者后悔行为的易逝品零售商最优库存策略[J].管理工程学报,2024,38(4):251-270,20.基金项目
国家自然科学基金项目(72001117、72072021、71772032) The National Natural Science Foundation of China(72001117,72072021,71772032) （72001117、72072021、71772032）
