在技术快速发展和产品频繁更新的背景下,作为一种面向消费者的营销方式,以旧换新服务逐渐受到电脑、智能手机等耐用品行业的重视。企业通过以旧换新可以有效地引导消费者进行产品升级。国内外学者针对以旧换新有许多研究,然而随着所处商业环境的复杂变化,企业也面临着新的挑战和难题。本文结合企业以旧换新服务实际运行现状和国内外相关研究,从三个不同的角度出发,针对企业的以旧换新策略和相关的定价策略进行系统深入分析。具体来讲: 首先,考虑带有预付费的以旧换新形式,即升级计划。制造商向消费者推出升级计划,承诺在未来旧机置换时给予固定的回收补贴以避免未来回收价值波动的风险,消费者决定是否加入。加入该计划的消费者需向企业提前支付额外的费用。本文通过建立两阶段模型,来刻画消费者的选择行为和制造商的利润,进而探究升级计划的盈利表现。研究结果表明,当新产品创新程度很小或生产成本较高时,制造商不应该引入升级计划。而当新产品质量水平提升适中、持有产品期望回收价值适中且波动较小时,升级计划能给制造商带来显著的利润改进。 其次,本文分析研究了动态环境下制造商新品售价和以旧换新价格的联合决策。在不考虑库存约束的情形下,基于垂直产品差异化模型来刻画不同时间点到达的消费者需求,通过优化新品销售期内制造商总的利润,得到联合最优定价。研究结果表明,以旧换新补贴随时间推移严格递减。在销售早期新品售价稳定不变,在后期特定时间点,对新品进行大幅降价销售,之后再逐渐提升价格。本文还对比分析了仅调整以旧换新价格的半动态以旧换新策略,发现在特定的市场条件下,半动态以旧换新策略的盈利表现近似最优。进一步地,本文对模型进行扩展,考虑有库存约束下地动态以旧换新策略,借鉴收益管理中相关方法,得到受时间和库存水平影响的最优定价结构特征。 最后,在闭环供应链结构下,本文考察了品牌商和第三方再制造商之间的授权合作策略,通过建立分析品牌商和第三方之间的博弈,分别研究了三种授权合作模型:完全不授权、部分授权以及完全授权的最优产品定价决策和相应的以旧换新补贴。研究结果表明,在一定的市场条件下,部分授权和完全授权合作模式是非常有效的间接调控翻新品市场供需的方式。然而当第三方的市场认可度较低,翻新品替代性较小,品牌商选择不合作是最优的策略。
With the rapid development of technology and frequent product release, the trade-in program draws great attention and interest in the durable goods industries such as computers and smart-phones. Through the trade-in program, firms can motivate customers for repeat purchases. Domestic and foreign scholars have conducted many studies on the properties of the trade-in program. However, with the complex changes in the business environment, firms are also facing new challenges and problems. Based on the analysis of the actual situation and related researches, the thesis systematically studies the optimal trade-in program and related pricing decisions from three perspectives. Specifically, the main results include: First, we consider the new form of the trade-in program: the upgrade program with up-front fees. The manufacturer provides customers with the option to upgrade to a new generation of the product with a pre-determined discount which can help customers avoid the uncertainty of the salvage price. The customers who join the program need to pay extra money in advance. We try to understand the performance by establishing a two-period model to analyze the customers’ choice and the firm’s profit function. Our analysis indicates when the innovation of the new product is low, and production cost is high, the manufacturer is not better off by offering the upgrade program. Also, we reveal that when the expected salvage price is moderate, the deviation is low, and the quality improvement of the new product is moderate, the program will achieve significant profitability improvement for the manufacturer, which has important implications for the management. Then we study the joint and dynamic decisions on the selling price of the new product and the trade-in price. We adopt a vertical product differentiation model to depict the customers’ demand without considering the constraints of inventories. By optimizing the profit of the manufacturer in the whole selling horizon, we study the optimal pricing decisions. The analysis shows that the optimal trade-in rebate is strictly decreasing over time, while for the selling price, in the early period, the new product is sold at a constant and relatively high price. At a specific time, the selling price is lowered down, then the firm gradually increases the price over time. We also consider a semi-dynamic policy in which only the trade-in price is adjusted dynamically. Our results show that under certain conditions the semi-dynamic policy performs almost identically to the dynamic one. In an extended model, we consider the scenario in which the manufacturer stocks a batch of new products at the beginning of the selling horizon, and the inventory cannot be replenished. Following a revenue management framework, we characterize the structural properties concerning the time and inventory level of new products. Finally, under the closed-loop supply chain structure, this article examines the authorization between brand-manufacturer and third-party remanufacturers. Through the game between the manufacturer and the third-party, we study the optimal pricing and relative trade-in rebates of three types of cooperation modes: complete noncooperation, partial authorization, and full authorization. The results show that partial authorization and full authorization are effective methods to indirectly control the supply and demand of the remanufactured product market. However, when the market’s recognition of the third-party is low and the substitution level of remanufactured products is small, the best strategy for the manufacturer is not to cooperate with the third-party.