Title: Mail-in-rebate coupled with revenue sharing and downward direct discount for supply chain coordination

Authors: Subrata Saha; Shibaji Panda; Nikunja Mohan Modak; Manjusri Basu

Addresses: Department of Mathematics, Institute of Engineering and Management, Salt Lake, Kolkata-700091, West Bengal, India ' Department of Mathematics, Bengal Institute of Technology, 1 No., Government Colony, Kolkata-700150, West Bengal, India ' Department of Mathematics, University of Kalyani, Kalyani-741235, West Bengal, India ' Department of Mathematics, University of Kalyani, Kalyani-741235, West Bengal, India

Abstract: Use of sales promotion in the short-term to increase sales by revenues and market share for slow-moving items is common in the supply chain, though in such cases performances of chain members are suboptimal. On the contrary, a growing body of literature suggests that a high degree of integration is needed to optimise performances of all supply chain partners simultaneously. To address supply chain integration, when sales promotion is used, we consider a three-echelon supply chain. Demand depends on the selling price by the retailer and individual promotional mechanisms are chosen by channel members. We study game theoretical models to examine impacts of two promotional policies, e.g., mail-in-rebate (MIR) and downward direct discount (DDD) on supply chain coordination. Effectiveness and flexibility of MIR, MIR coupled with revenue sharing (RS) and DDD as coordination contracts are discussed analytically. We show that in decentralised decision making all channel members prefer manufacturers MIR and discard the possibility of distributers' MIR. Although to cut out channel conflict all chain members cooperate actively by complementing one another through contribution to invariant discount that is provided to customers, still, distributors and manufacturers prefer MIR and RS to DDD, whereas retailers prefers the reverse.

Keywords: mail-in-rebate; MIR; revenue sharing; downward direct discount; DDD; supply chain coordination; supply chain management; SCM; supply chain integration; sales promotion.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2015.070145

International Journal of Operational Research, 2015 Vol.23 No.4, pp.451 - 476

Received: 15 Feb 2013
Accepted: 14 Jul 2013
Published online: 28 Jun 2015 *

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