Abstract:
This study focuses on the joint decision on pricing and incentive mechanism design in an offline-to-online (O2O) supply chain that consists of an online retailer and an offline showroom with fairness concerns. The target is to determine the optimal pricing strategy of the online retailer, and to design the optimal incentive mechanism for the offline showroom, which provides product experience services and may handle potential consumer returns. Based on the principal-agent theory, a model is developed to derive these mechanisms. Solving the model yields the optimal pricing strategy for the online retailer and the corresponding incentive contract for the offline showroom. Furthermore, the impact of fairness concerns, the probability of consumers purchasing directly online, and the return cost on the decisions and profits of both parties are analyzed. Results show that, with the same level of O2O's related factors, fairness concerns of the offline showroom reduce its service efforts, as well as the optimal price and profit of the online retailer. However, the effect of fairness concerns on the incentive coefficient is non-monotonic. Generally, fairness concerns have a negative impact on both the online retailer and the entire O2O system. Numerical experiments validate the effectiveness of the proposed model and findings, and further reveal the underlying mechanisms of fairness concerns in O2O supply chains.