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Resale price maintenance contracts with retailer sales effort: Effect of flexibility and competition

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  • Haresh Gurnani
  • Yi Xu

Abstract

In Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) contracts, the manufacturer specifies the resale price that retailers must charge to consumers. We study the role of using a RPM contract in a market where demand is influenced by retailer sales effort. First, it is well known that RPM alone does not provide incentive for the retailer to use adequate sales effort and some form of quantity fixing may be needed to achieve channel coordination. However, when the market potential of the product is uncertain, RPM with quantity fixing is a rigid contract form. We propose and study a variety of RPM contracts with quantity fixing that offer different forms of flexibility including pricing flexibility and quantity flexibility. Second, we address a long‐time debate in both academia and practice on whether RPM is anti‐competitive in a market when two retailers compete on both price and sales effort. We show that depending on the relative intensity of price competition and sales effort competition, RPM may lead to higher or lower retail prices compared to a two‐part tariff contract, which specifies a wholesale price and a fixed fee. Further, the impact of RPM on price competition and sales effort competition is always opposite to each other. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2006

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  • Haresh Gurnani & Yi Xu, 2006. "Resale price maintenance contracts with retailer sales effort: Effect of flexibility and competition," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(5), pages 448-463, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:navres:v:53:y:2006:i:5:p:448-463
    DOI: 10.1002/nav.20152
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    Cited by:

    1. Gurnani, Haresh & Sharma, Arun & Grewal, Dhruv, 2010. "Optimal Returns Policy under Demand Uncertainty," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 137-147.
    2. Xiang Fang & Jun Ru & Yunzeng Wang, 2021. "The Effect of List Price on Channel Performance with Consignment," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(1), pages 235-252, January.
    3. Wenming Xie & Yingxue Zhao & Zhibin Jiang & Pui-Sze Chow, 2016. "Optimizing product service system by franchise fee contracts under information asymmetry," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 240(2), pages 709-729, May.
    4. Liang, Guitian & Gu, Chaocheng, 2021. "The value of target sales rebate contracts in a supply chain with downstream competition," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    5. Yue Chen & Sai-Ho Chung & Shu Guo, 2020. "Franchising contracts in fashion supply chain operations: models, practices, and real case study," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 291(1), pages 83-128, August.

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