Ruiliang Yan

Pricing strategy for companies with mixed online and traditional retailing distribution markets

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework to help business marketers with a mixed online and traditional retail channel (multi‐channel company) to find the optimal pricing strategy and market structure in order to maximize their profits.Design/methodology/approach – A game theory model is developed to determine the optimal pricing strategy for the multi‐channel company.Findings – It was demonstrated that an optimal pricing strategy exists under different market structures for a multi‐channel company. When a company uses multiple channels to sell its product, the optimal pricing strategy is to use a low‐high pricing strategy if the online marginal cost is equal to or less than the traditional marginal cost, or a high‐low pricing strategy if the online marginal cost is far larger than the traditional marginal cost. Furthermore, in order to maximize its profit, the company using multiple channels should adopt channel integration as the optimal market structure.Research limitations/implica...

Product categories, returns policy and pricing strategy for e‐marketers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework to help e‐marketers to find an optimal returns policy and pricing strategy in order to maximize their profits.Design/methodology/approach – A profit‐maximization model is developed to determine the optimal returns policy and pricing strategy for e‐marketers.Findings – The author demonstrates that an optimal returns policy and pricing strategy exists when firms sell products through an e‐market. When a firm uses an e‐market to sell its product, its optimal returns policy and pricing strategy is to offer a more generous returns policy and to charge a higher price when the product web‐fit is strong. Furthermore, the results also show that while the returns policy always is valuable for the e‐marketer, the value of returns policy increases with the product web‐fit.Research limitations/implications – The present study assumed that all consumers have perfect information. However, information to the consumers could be incomplete. It is recommended tha...

Data Mining in Nonprofit Organizations, Government Agencies, and Other Institutions

Data mining involves searching through databases for potentially useful information, such as knowledge rules, patterns, regularities, and other trends hidden in the data. Today, data mining is more widely used than ever before, not only by businesses who seek profits but also by nonprofit organizations, government agencies, private groups and other institutions in the public sector. In this paper, the authors summarize and classify the applications of data mining in the public sector into the following possible categories: improving service or performance; helping customer relations management; analyzing scientific and research information; managing human resources; improving emergency management; detecting fraud, waste, and abuse; detecting criminal activities; and detecting terrorist activities.

Service level, pricing strategy and firm performance in a manufacturer‐giant retailer supply chain

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework to help the manufacturer and the giant retailer to obtain optimal service level, pricing strategy, and market structure in order to maximize their respective profits.Design/methodology/approach – A profit‐maximization model is developed to determine the optimal service level, pricing strategy, and market structure for supply chain players.Findings – Using a profit‐maximization model, it is demonstrated that optimal service level and pricing strategy exist under different market structures in a manufacturer‐giant retailer supply chain. In order to maximize their respective profits, the manufacturer and the giant retailer should cooperatively employ a coordinative market structure as an optimal market structure and a bargaining model can be utilized to implement profit sharing for the manufacturer and giant retailer to optimize their profits. Furthermore, it is also shown that the value of coordinative structure always increases with the customer...

A Relative Comparison of Leading Supply Chain Management Software Packages

Supply Chain Management (SCM) has proven to be an effective tool that aids companies in the development of competitive advantages. SCM Systems are relied on to manage warehouses, transportation, trade logistics and various other issues concerning the coordinated movement of products and services from suppliers to customers. Although in today’s fast paced business environment, numerous supply chain solution tools are readily available to companies, choosing the right SCM software is not an easy task. The complexity of SCM systems creates a multifaceted issue when selecting the right software, particularly in light of the speed at which technology evolves. In this paper, we use the approach of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to determine which SCM software best meets the needs of a company. The AHP approach outlined in this paper can be easily transferred to the comparison of other SCM software packages.

Health Creates Wealth? The Use of Nutrition Claims and Firm Financial Performance

Prior research has investigated consumers’ perceptions of nutritional information but does not detail how the use of nutrition claims on product packages maybe associated with a manufacturers financial performance. Using data from 38 firms, the authors find evidence that a firms stock market performance and sales relate significantly and positively to both the degree of nutritional emphasis and the specificity of nutrition claims on product packages but relate negatively to the diversity of nutrition claims the company uses across its products. The findings provide important managerial implications to help businesses obtain financial gains through the use of nutrition claims. They also suggest that aligning the labeling policy could be a profitable long-term route for marketers, and it is necessary for policy makers to pay attention to firm performance. The insights regarding the economic benefits of using nutrition claims from a marketing–finance perspective provide further implications for policy makers to encourage firms to offer nutritious products and make nutrition information more accessible for consumers.

Benefits and Barriers in Mining the Healthcare Industry Data

The authors’ paper addresses the applications of data mining within the healthcare industry. Healthcare data are seen as one of the more rewarding and most difficult of all data to analyze. Proper data mining techniques provide the methodology and technology to transform the voluminous amounts of data into useful information for decision making. Data mining can be utilized to help find cures for existing diseases, uncovering patterns for genetic diseases and the causes of new diseases across the globe. By implementing data mining techniques the industry is finally gaining control over the inadequacy of readily available records. Data mining has been used in patient care, healthcare plans, and administration. By utilizing these methods, hospitals and healthcare insurance providers alike are able to save millions of dollars, administration headaches, and most importantly, countless lives.

Analysis of a dual-source production-inventory problem with quantity constraints

In this paper, we study a production-outsourcing problem in which the firm has two supply sources. Demands are random variables and supply/production capacity is unlimited. We discuss the problem, analyse the firm’s sourcing strategies, and compute the policies. The policies are then evaluated through extensive simulation studies that aim to provide important insights with respect to the performance under varied demand and cost parameters as well as different service level requirements of the firm.

Pricing strategies and firm performances under alliance brand

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework to help competitive firms find optimal pricing and brand management strategies in order to maximize their respective profits.Design/methodology/approach – A game‐theoretic model is developed to determine optimal pricing and brand management strategies for competitive firms.Findings – The study demonstrates that optimal pricing and brand management strategies exist for firms in a competitive market. The optimum marketing strategy for competitive firms to employ is the cooperative alliance pricing and brand management strategy, particularly when market competition is very intense.Research limitations/implications – The present study assumes that all information is known to all parties. However, information could be incomplete. It is recommended that future research explore pricing and brand management strategies under incomplete and asymmetric information settings.Practical implications – The paper provides a very useful model framework and prici...

A comparative study of US and international sustainability

Sustainability is the key to finding solutions to problems facing the Earth such as insufficient access to food, environmental degradation, declining natural resources, vanishing forests and deteriorating communities. Sustainable development is a common challenge for the global community, which has become a widely recognised goal for human society. This paper compares the sustainability of USA with other 20 countries. The mathematical comparison was completed using a statistical and simulation model to compare and analyse the five categories across each country.