Abstract: In order to study whether brand manufacturers and retailers can achieve exclusive procurement cooperation in the context of imitated product competition, a two-stage Stackelberg game model composed of original brand manufacturers, imitators and retailers is established. The influence of introducing imitated products by retailers on the profits of retailer themself and brand manufacturers is compared, while the boundary conditions for exclusive procurement cooperation between brand manufacturers and retailers in the condition that brand manufacturers give discounts are solved. Results show that: 1) without taking into account the discounts given by brand manufacturers, introducing imitated products by retailers always improves the retailer profits and reduces the brand manufacturer profits, but the demand of brand manufacturers for innovative products increases against the trend; 2) when retailers are game leaders, if brand manufacturers agree to give retailers a wholesale price discount, both brand manufacturers and retailers can realize Pareto improvement in exclusive procurement cooperation, and this discount level threshold is correlated to the quality of imitated products as well as the proportion of loyal consumers of brand manufacturers; 3) when brand manufacturers are game leaders, neither brand manufacturers nor retailers can realize Pareto improvement in exclusive procurement cooperation.

Key words: imitate products, exclusive procurement, brand manufacturer, Stackelberg game