No abstract

No abstract

This paper studies the role of targeting in a distribution channel composed of one manufacturer and one retailer. In channel interactions, the manufacturer can deploy targeted advertising while the retailer can initiate targeted pricing. Using a game-theoretic framework, we find the following results: (1) Targeted advertising increases the manufacturers profit at the expense of the retailer; (2) The retailer may be worse off using targeted pricing; (3) Targeted pricing discourages the manufacturer from launching targeted advertising which is a more severe threat to the retailer. Therefore, the retailer may optimally use targeted pricing, even when it hurts profit, to defend against the attack of targeted advertising by the manufacturer.

This paper investigates the impact of partial information sharing in a three-echelon supply chain. Partial information sharing means that information sharing occurs only between the distributor and the retailer, but not between the distributor and the manufacturer. This paper contributes to the literature by summarizing the circumstances in which information sharing between the retailer and the distributor benefits the manufacturer. In addition, our study points out that such information sharing does not always bring benefits to the manufacturer and that in some cases the information sharing may harm the manufacturer. We explain the reasons why this can happen and give managerial intuition for our results. Using numerical analysis, we illustrate the impact of partial information sharing on the agents in the supply chain with the change of the autoregressive coefficient in the demand process.