制造商售后服务质量决策对灰色市场的影响研究

考虑一个分散式供应链下零售商窜货的灰色市场结构，其中制造商直接将产品销往高端市场，但通过中间零售商销往低端市场，两个市场相对独立。零售商未经制造商授权私自将产品窜货到高端市场而形成灰色市场。为了抑制灰色市场，制造商额外在低端市场提供增值售后服务。本文将建立两种模型：基本模型和服务决策模型，通过两种模型的对比分析，研究制造商售后服务质量决策对灰色市场规模和企业收益的影响。研究发现：对于制造商而言，售后服务质量决策是一种有效的灰色市场管理手段，不仅可以抑制灰色市场规模，同时还可以增加制造商的收益；对于零售商而言，售后服务质量决策有可能降低零售商的收益，也有可能增加零售商的收益，取决于消费者对高端产品和低端产品支付意愿的差异程度。

The Impact of Manufacturer Service Provision on Retailer Parallel Importation

Gray marketing emerges when gray marketers stealthily resell a branded product without the manufacturer's authorization. Previous research has examined gray marketing from various angles, but there lacks study from the perspective of service quaility in a decentralized supply chain where the retailer engages in parallel importation. A gray market structure composed of a manufacturer and a retailer is investigated in this paper. The manufacturer sells products directly to the high-end market, whereas the products are sold to the low-end market through the retailer. The gray market will be formed once the retailer diverts the products into the high-end market. A benchmark model is established without service provision and a service quality model. Through the comparative analysis of the two models, the influence of the manufacturer's after-sales service quality strategy on the gray market scale and firms profit is examined. It is found that service provision increases the prices of low-end product price, gray product and high-end product. In addition, the finding shows that service provision decreases the gray product demand and increases the low-end product demand. Interestingly, it is also found that service provision increases the manufacturer profit and does not always decrease the retailer profit, it could result in a win-win situation. The reason is as follow. On the one hand, service provision decreases the profit of retailer from gray market, on the other hand it also increases the demand of low-end product which increases the retailer profit from low-end market. Whether the total profit of retailer increases or decreases will depend on which effect is taking the dominant place. Our results suggest that the manufacturer service provision is an effective method to manage the gray market problem, which inhibits the gray market demand and increases the profits of manufacturer.