IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/proeco/v193y2017icp590-601.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A two-product newsvendor system with a flexible product

Author

Listed:
  • Fu, Qi
  • Wang, Qifei
  • Xu, Xiaoya
  • Lian, Zhaotong

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the effect of offering a flexible product in a newsvendor system with two products. We show that this flexible selling strategy can help firms effectively pool excess stocks to better match supply with demand and thus enhance profitability. However, offering a flexible product may also bring the potential risk of cannibalizing regular demand. We explore this trade-off by incorporating pricing decision for the flexible product when demand cannibalization exists. Our study shows that even when there is no demand induction effect, offering a flexible product still significantly improves profit. The value of offering a flexible product is highest when prices for specific products are the same, and it increases when the demands for specific products are more negatively correlated, more volatile, and more symmetric. Furthermore, the performance improvement is more salient when products have narrow profit margin or high overage risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Fu, Qi & Wang, Qifei & Xu, Xiaoya & Lian, Zhaotong, 2017. "A two-product newsvendor system with a flexible product," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 590-601.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:193:y:2017:i:c:p:590-601
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2017.08.018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527317302669
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijpe.2017.08.018?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rachel R. Chen & Esther Gal-Or & Paolo Roma, 2014. "Opaque Distribution Channels for Competing Service Providers: Posted Price vs. Name-Your-Own-Price Mechanisms," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 62(4), pages 733-750, August.
    2. Tingliang Huang & Yimin Yu, 2014. "Sell Probabilistic Goods? A Behavioral Explanation for Opaque Selling," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(5), pages 743-759, September.
    3. Wang, Qinan & Parlar, Mahmut, 1994. "A three-person game theory model arising in stochastic inventory control theory," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 83-97, July.
    4. Serguei Netessine & Nils Rudi, 2003. "Centralized and Competitive Inventory Models with Demand Substitution," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 51(2), pages 329-335, April.
    5. Robert A. Shumsky & Fuqiang Zhang, 2009. "Dynamic Capacity Management with Substitution," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 57(3), pages 671-684, June.
    6. Scott Fay & Jinhong Xie, 2010. "The Economics of Buyer Uncertainty: Advance Selling vs. Probabilistic Selling," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(6), pages 1040-1057, 11-12.
    7. Dmitry Shapiro & Xianwen Shi, 2008. "Market Segmentation: The Role of Opaque Travel Agencies," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(4), pages 803-837, December.
    8. Guillermo Gallego & Robert Phillips, 2004. "Revenue Management of Flexible Products," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 6(4), pages 321-337, January.
    9. Kinshuk Jerath & Serguei Netessine & Senthil K. Veeraraghavan, 2010. "Revenue Management with Strategic Customers: Last-Minute Selling and Opaque Selling," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(3), pages 430-448, March.
    10. Scott Fay & Jinhong Xie, 2008. "Probabilistic Goods: A Creative Way of Selling Products and Services," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 674-690, 07-08.
    11. Tuo Wang & Esther Gal-Or & Rabikar Chatterjee, 2009. "The Name-Your-Own-Price Channel in the Travel Industry: An Analytical Exploration," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(6), pages 968-979, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Yi & Hua, Guowei & Cheng, T.C.E. & Zhang, Juliang & Fernandez, Vicenc, 2020. "Risk pooling through physical probabilistic selling," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 295-311.
    2. Jianghua Wu & Zepeng Wang & Chenchen Zhao, 2023. "Effects of production capacity and substitutability on optimal pricing and inventory policies," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 326(1), pages 341-367, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhang, Yi & Hua, Guowei & Cheng, T.C.E. & Zhang, Juliang & Fernandez, Vicenc, 2020. "Risk pooling through physical probabilistic selling," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 295-311.
    2. Zhang, Yi & Hua, Guowei & Wang, Shouyang & Zhang, Juliang & Fernandez, Vicenc, 2018. "Managing demand uncertainty: Probabilistic selling versus inventory substitution," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 56-67.
    3. Guang Yang & Ying Wang & Mulin Liu, 2023. "Optimal Policy for Probabilistic Selling with Three-Way Revenue Sharing Contract under the Perspective of Sustainable Supply Chain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-22, February.
    4. Feng, Bo & Mao, Zhaofang & Li, Hui, 2021. "Choices for competing service providers with heterogeneous customers: Traditional versus opaque sales modes," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. Adam N. Elmachtoub & Michael L. Hamilton, 2021. "The Power of Opaque Products in Pricing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(8), pages 4686-4702, August.
    6. Yifan Wu & Shibo Jin, 2022. "Joint pricing and inventory decision under a probabilistic selling strategy," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 1209-1233, April.
    7. Ningyuan Chen & Adam N. Elmachtoub & Michael L. Hamilton & Xiao Lei, 2021. "Loot Box Pricing and Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(8), pages 4809-4825, August.
    8. Rice, Dan Hamilton & Fay, Scott A. & Xie, Jinhong, 2014. "Probabilistic selling vs. markdown selling: Price discrimination and management of demand uncertainty in retailing," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 147-155.
    9. Alonso, Juana M. & Socorro, M. Pilar, 2024. "Blind booking: The effects on passengers' purchase decision, airlines’ profitability, and tourist destinations," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    10. Yong Chao & Lin Liu & Dongyuan Zhan, 2016. "Vertical Probabilistic Selling under Competition: the Role of Consumer Anticipated Regret," Working Papers 16-14, NET Institute.
    11. Zhang, Zihao & Zhang, Mengying, 2024. "Pricing and Capacity Allocation in Opaque Selling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 318(1), pages 230-241.
    12. Qing Li & Christopher S. Tang & He Xu, 2020. "Mitigating the Double‐Blind Effect in Opaque Selling: Inventory and Information," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(1), pages 35-54, January.
    13. Ying He & Huaxia Rui, 2022. "Probabilistic selling in vertically differentiated markets: The role of substitution," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(11), pages 4191-4204, November.
    14. Mao, Zhaofang & Liu, Wei & Feng, Bo, 2019. "Opaque distribution channels for service providers with asymmetric capacities: Posted-price mechanisms," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 112-120.
    15. Quan Zheng & Xiajun Amy Pan & Janice E. Carrillo, 2019. "Probabilistic Selling for Vertically Differentiated Products with Salient Thinkers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(3), pages 442-460, May.
    16. Zhang, Juliang & Deng, Lan & Liu, Huimin & Cheng, T.C.E., 2022. "Which strategy is better for managing multi-product demand uncertainty: Inventory substitution or probabilistic selling?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(1), pages 79-95.
    17. Yongbo Xiao & Jian Chen, 2014. "Evaluating the potential effects from probabilistic selling of similar products," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(8), pages 604-620, December.
    18. Guo, Xiaolong & Bian, Junsong & Wu, Peiyan & Shi, Victor & Chen, Huangen, 2023. "Probabilistic product design with regret-anticipated consumers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 263(C).
    19. Fay, Scott & Xie, Jinhong & Feng, Cong, 2015. "The Effect of Probabilistic Selling on the Optimal Product Mix," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 451-467.
    20. Tingliang Huang & Yimin Yu, 2014. "Sell Probabilistic Goods? A Behavioral Explanation for Opaque Selling," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(5), pages 743-759, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:193:y:2017:i:c:p:590-601. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.