To share or not to share? When information sharing meets remanufacturing

Traditional research shows that a retailer suffers a loss due to information sharing with a manufacturer in a supply chain. However, when the manufacturer produces both new and remanufactured products, the retailer’s trade-offs change. This paper investigates whether the retailer can share demand information with the manufacturer if they can add remanufactured products to the product line. We reveal that the retailer can benefit from information sharing when the manufacturer may remanufacture. On the one hand, if the retailer shares information, the manufacturer utilizes information to strategically adjust wholesale prices, resulting in a reduction in the retailer’s profit. On the other hand, if the retailer does not share the information, the manufacturer abandons remanufacturing, leading to a lower profit for the retailer. Therefore, when the former loss is less than the latter, the retailer is willing to share information with the manufacturer. Furthermore, we find that remanufacturing and information sharing can achieve a triple-win situation for the retailer, the manufacturer and the environment.