Managing a Dual-Channel Supply Chain with Fairness and Channel Preference

This paper investigates a dual-channel supply chain in which a manufacturer sells the product via an offline retailer or online store. The manufacturer sets the wholesale and online price, and the retailer decides the retail price with the retailer’s fairness preference and consumer’s online channel preference. Through investigating the combined impacts of fairness preference and channel preference on the enterprises’ operational strategies, this paper obtains some meaningful results. If a manufacturer thinks over the fairness preference, he decreases the wholesale price to mitigate a loss of retailer and benefit the supply chain design. The manufacturer intends to set up the online channel with a lower acceptance as the fairness preference grows. However, the gains from enhanced online channel acceptance cannot compensate for the manufacturer’s loss by the fairness effect that benefits the retailer. Moreover, the manufacturer cannot neglect the retailer’s fairness preference generating a “lose-lose” case for both members.