The value of buyback contract under price competition

We investigate the value of buyback contract by analysing a supply chain with one manufacturer and two competing retailers. Three scenarios, depending on whether buyback contracts are offered to neither, one, or both of the retailers, are considered. We first study the case when the manufacturer can only determine his buyback price. We show how the demand uncertainty, the competition level and the handling cost of buyback contract influence the profits of the manufacturer, the two retailers and the whole supply chain. Interestingly, contrary to the conventional wisdom that the buyback contract may intensify competition between the retailers, we show that offering the buyback contract to two competing retailers can benefit every channel member even if the competition level is high. Next, we study the return contract, a special type of buyback contract, and show the effect of competition level and industry outlook on supply chain parties' choices on return contract. We extend Padmanabhan and Png [1997. “Manufacturer's Returns Policies And Retail Competition.” Marketing Science 16 (1): 81–94] to the case with an asymmetric contract structure, i.e. one return contract and one whole-sale contract. We show that an asymmetric contract structure may better off both the retailers and the whole supply chain.