Coordination contracts for a dual-channel supply chain under capital constraints

Manufacturers often face capital constraints when opening up online channel, at this time external financing and internal financing are usually considered. Previous literature has shown that internal financing, turns out to be a better option. To figure out how trade credit financing discount contract affects operations and performances of supply chain, this paper studies the pricing decision of a retailer-dominant dual-channel supply chain with manufacturer's capital constraints. The Stackelberg game models under centralized decision and decentralized decision are constructed. Moreover, this paper conducts research about the effects of revenue-sharing (RS) contract, direct channel price discount (DP) contract and retail channel price discount (RP) contract on the performance of supply chain. Numerical examples are provided to explore the comparison of the optimal pricing strategies and total profits under different contracts. The results show that the retailer prefers RS and DP contracts to RP contract. Among them, RS contract has a broader scope of coordination, while DP contract can achieve a higher profit. The results can serve as insights for decision-makers to choose the most appropriate financial discount contract.