消費者效用被用來表示消費者對於一個企業所提供的商品或服務的喜好程度。在一個市場裡有著如價格、品牌、或距離等各種不同的因素影響著消費者效用。而在零售市場中，賣方對於促銷所下的功夫是影響消費者效用的重要因素之一。一個客人的消費者效用會受到零售商宣傳效果的影響，而這個影響的強度會隨著距離變遠而遞減。在我們研究的第一個問題中，我們考量一個供應商及零售商之間的促銷成本分攤決策問題。此問題中顧客需求受到距離依存型的促銷效果影響。我們提供數學模型來幫助管理者決定在考量了距離對宣傳效果影響下的零售價格、廣告支出及供應商分攤廣告支出的比例。我們發現當市場範圍擴大或是距離對於促銷效果的影響降低時，供應商會分攤更高比例的廣告支出。我們提供的數值分析顯示距離依存的促銷效果對於決策及最終利潤有顯著的影響。 除了宣傳效果外，市場潛力、製造成本或是價差彈性等產品特性也是市場中影響產品需求的重要因素。在本研究中，我們還討論一個在單零售商雙製造商供應鏈下考量非對稱需求的訂價及貨架決策問題。我們提供數學模型以決定貨架空間大小、零售價及批發價。我們也進一步討論來自不同製造商的兩產品間市場潛力、製造成本與價差彈性的差異對於各決策的影響。研究的結果顯示一個企業可藉由同時調整市場潛力與價差彈性的混合策略來達成既定的目標獲利。我們還發現一個製造商可提高產品差異性來緩和製造成本上升所帶來的衝擊。此外，我們也發現零售商可經由貨架空間成本管理來控制產品市場潛力或製造成本變化所帶來的影響。在本研究中提供的各模型能幫助管理者解決更符合現實零售市場情境下的決策問題。 ;Consumer’s utility is used to represent a consumer’s preference for a good or service provided by a firm. There are many factors to influence a consumer’s utility in a market such as price, brand, or distance. Seller’s promotional effort is one of the most important factors in a retail market. A consumer’s utility will be affected by promotional effect from retailers, and this effect is declined with distance. At the first of this study, we consider the promotion cost sharing decision between a supplier and a retailer. The consumer demand is affected by distance-dependent promotional effect. We provide a mathematical model to help managers decide on the retail price, the local advertising expenditures, and the supplier participation rate, with consideration of the influence of distance on the promotional effect. We also find that the supplier’s promotion cost sharing rate increases as the market size increases or the influence of distance on the promotional effect decreases. A numerical example is given to show that the nature of distance-dependent promotional effect has a significant impact on the decisions and profits. Besides the promotional effect, the product characteristic such as market potential, production cost, or cross-price elasticity would affect a product’s demand in a market. In this study, we additionally discuss a pricing and shelf space size decision problem in a single retailer-two manufacturer supply chain where products from two different manufacturers have non-symmetric market demand functions. Mathematical models are developed to determine the optimal shelf space and retail and wholesale price, and to analyze how differences in the market potential, production cost and cross-price sensitivity of the products affect the optimal solutions. The study results show that a firm can adopt a mixed strategy of using the influence of the market potential and cross-price sensitivity simultaneously to achieve a pre-specified profit. We also show that a manufacturer can use a product differentiation strategy to offset the impact caused by an increase in production cost. Moreover, we find that the retailer can control the influence of a product’s market potential and production cost on the total demand and retail prices via the shelf space cost management. The models provided in our study help managers to solve retail market decision problems under more practical situation.
