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A Theory of Forward Buying, Merchandising, and Trade Deals

Author

Listed:
  • Rajiv Lal

    (Stanford University)

  • John D. C. Little

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • J. Miguel Villas-Boas

    (University of California at Berkeley and Universidade Católica Portuguesa)

Abstract

Manufacturer-supported trade deals remain one of the major competitive tools in today's marketplace. This is true despite the fact that such trade deals are often claimed to be unprofitable for manufacturers. The unprofitability is attributed to the fact that retailers forward buy and do not pass the price discounts on to the consumers. The audience for this paper includes practitioners and academics who have been concerned with the ubiquitous practice of trade dealing in spite of its purported unprofitability. The paper attempts to understand the motivations for trade dealing by comparing the profitability of trade dealing in the presence of forward buying to a situation in which retailers carry no inventory. Moreover, we shed light on why manufacturers sometimes offer trade deals even though the retailers do not pass through these deals to the consumers. We study the problem of trade dealing through an economic model that includes the manufacturers, the retailer, and the consumers. In this way we include all three levels of the distribution system, and model the dynamic effects of forward buying by the retailer. The main features of the model can be summarized as follows. At the manufacturer level, each of two manufacturers is allowed to offer a regular price and a deal price, which, if accepted by the retailer, requires the retailer to display and merchandise the product. Moreover, the manufacturer is assumed to incur a selling cost with respect to offering a trade deal. The retailer, on the other hand, decides whether to accept the deal, determines how much to order, and sets the retail prices of the two brands. The retailer needs to set a price below the regular price to achieve maximum effectiveness from its display and merchandising activities. If the retailer accepts a trade deal, it incurs a fixed cost of display and merchandising the product reflecting the opportunity cost of display. If the retailer does not accept the trade deal, it can order at the non-deal price. Furthermore, the retailer can order more than what can be sold to the consumers in that period, i.e, forward buy. The retailer can carry inventory from either manufacturer at a cost but has an upper limit to the total amount of inventory carried in any period. The consumer population is assumed to consist of brand loyals and switchers. The brand loyals buy as long as the price is below the reservation price, while the switchers choose the brand on display if the retail price is lower than the regular price and the price of the competing brand. With these as the basic elements of the model, we characterize the equilibrium manufacturer and retailer pricing strategies with and without inventories in an infinite-horizon model with discounting. The central result of the paper is derived by comparing the profits to the manufacturers for the case when retailers are allowed to forward buy to the case when they are not allowed to forward buy. This comparison shows that although forward buying is profitable to the retailer through the availability of goods at lower prices, an important consequence of forward buying is the decreased intensity of competition between manufacturers. The decrease in the intensity of competition yields higher profits to the manufacturers as compared to the case where the retailer is not allowed to carry any inventory. The intuition behind our result is seen by taking a closer look at intensity of trade dealing in the presence and absence of forward buying. Consider the worst and the best trade deals offered by manufacturers, in equilibrium, when the retailer is not allowed to carry any inventory and explore their viability when the retailer is allowed to inventory. If the retailer is allowed to carry inventory and holds some inventory, the worst trade deals become unacceptable to the retailer. This is because the inventory allows the retailer to not buy all the units demanded in the subsequent period, and the retailer can therefore reject such trade deals. Similarly, the best trade deals offered by manufacturers when the retailer is not allowed to inventory do not remain as profitable because the retailer forward buys and the manufacturers lose future sales and profits. Thus trade deals at both extremes (the best and the worst) that were profitable to the manufacturers when the retailer is not allowed to forward buy are no longer viable when the retailer is allowed to forward buy. This increases the overall probability of not offering trade deals and leads to decreased intensity of competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Rajiv Lal & John D. C. Little & J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 1996. "A Theory of Forward Buying, Merchandising, and Trade Deals," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 21-37.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:15:y:1996:i:1:p:21-37
    DOI: 10.1287/mksc.15.1.21
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    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.15.1.21
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ozgun Caliskan Demirag & Ozgul Baysar & Pinar Keskinocak & Julie L. Swann, 2010. "The effects of customer rebates and retailer incentives on a manufacturer's profits and sales," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(1), pages 88-108, February.
    2. Peter Boatwright & Sanjay Dhar & Peter Rossi, 2004. "The Role of Retail Competition, Demographics and Account Retail Strategy as Drivers of Promotional Sensitivity," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 2(2), pages 169-190, June.
    3. F. J. Arcelus & G. Srinivasan, 2006. "Marketing|inventory interactions in the characterization of retailer response to manufacturer trade deals," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(7), pages 537-547.
    4. Dmitri Kuksov & Kangkang Wang, 2014. "The Bright Side of Loss Aversion in Dynamic and Competitive Markets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(5), pages 693-711, September.
    5. Tony Haitao Cui & Jagmohan S. Raju & Z. John Zhang, 2008. "A Price Discrimination Model of Trade Promotions," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(5), pages 779-795, 09-10.
    6. Chadwick J. Miller & Daniel C. Brannon & Jim Salas & Martha Troncoza, 2021. "Advertising, incentives, and the upsell: how advertising differentially moderates customer- vs. retailer-directed price incentives’ impact on consumers’ preferences for premium products," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(6), pages 1043-1064, November.
    7. Hall, Joseph M. & Kopalle, Praveen K. & Krishna, Aradhna, 2010. "Retailer Dynamic Pricing and Ordering Decisions: Category Management versus Brand-by-Brand Approaches," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 172-183.
    8. Xu Guan & Ying‐Ju Chen, 2016. "Timing of information acquisition in a competitive environment," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(1), pages 3-22, February.
    9. Mihal Stoyanov, 2010. "Modern concept on the consumer choice as a rational behavior, encouraged by means of sales promotion techniques," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 101-116.
    10. Meghan Busse & Florian Zettelmeyer & Jorge Silva-Risso, 2004. "$1000 Cash Back: Asymmetric Information in Auto Manufaturer Promotions," NBER Working Papers 10887, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Fernando Bernstein & Awi Federgruen, 2005. "Decentralized Supply Chains with Competing Retailers Under Demand Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(1), pages 18-29, January.
    12. Altug, Mehmet Sekip & van Ryzin, Garrett, 2013. "Product quality selection: Contractual agreements and supplier competition in an assemble-to-order environment," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 626-638.
    13. Zheyin (Jane) Gu & Yunchuan Liu, 2013. "Consumer Fit Search, Retailer Shelf Layout, and Channel Interaction," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(4), pages 652-668, July.
    14. Xavier Drèze & David R. Bell, 2003. "Creating Win–Win Trade Promotions: Theory and Empirical Analysis of Scan-Back Trade Deals," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 16-39, November.
    15. Wesley Marcos Almeida & Claudimar Pereira Veiga, 2023. "Does demand forecasting matter to retailing?," Journal of Marketing Analytics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(2), pages 219-232, June.
    16. Eunkyu Lee & Richard Staelin & Weon Sang Yoo & Rex Du, 2013. "A “Meta-Analysis” of Multibrand, Multioutlet Channel Systems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(9), pages 1950-1969, September.
    17. Nanda Kumar & Surendra Rajiv & Abel Jeuland, 2001. "Effectiveness of Trade Promotions: Analyzing the Determinants of Retail Pass Through," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 382-404, August.
    18. Rajiv Lal & J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 1998. "Price Promotions and Trade Deals with Multiproduct Retailers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(7), pages 935-949, July.
    19. Arcelus, F. J. & Shah, Nita H. & Srinivasan, G., 2001. "Retailer's response to special sales: price discount vs. trade credit," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 417-428, October.
    20. Pinçe, Çerağ, 2021. "Forward Buying and Strategic Stockouts," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 289(1), pages 118-131.
    21. Xi Li & Krista J. Li & Yan Xiong, 2023. "Channel Coordination of Storable Goods," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(3), pages 538-550, May.
    22. Sherif Nasser & Danko Turcic, 2019. "Temporary Contract Adjustment to a Retailer with a Private Demand Forecast," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 209-229, January.
    23. Yuxin Chen & Chakravarthi Narasimhan & Z. John Zhang, 2001. "Individual Marketing with Imperfect Targetability," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 23-41, November.
    24. Mathur, Sameer & Sinitsyn, Maxim, 2013. "Price promotions in emerging markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 404-416.

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