Buyback Pricing of Durable Goods in Dual Distribution Channels

Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Published online in Articles in Advance 22 Oct 2019

30 Pages Posted: 8 Sep 2016 Last revised: 17 Aug 2023

See all articles by Gokce Esenduran

Gokce Esenduran

Purdue University - Department of Management

Lauren Xiaoyuan Lu

Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business

Jayashankar M. Swaminathan

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill - Operations Area

Date Written: August 3, 2018

Abstract

Problem Definition: In the U.S. automobile industry, manufacturers distribute products through dealers and rental agencies. To mediate direct competition between the two intermediaries, manufacturers adopted buyback programs to repurchase used rental cars from rental agencies and redistribute them through dealers. We investigate how the timing of buyback pricing affects manufacturers' profitability and the intermediaries' ordering decisions by studying two schemes: (1) a precommitted scheme where a manufacturer precommits to a buyback price at the time of initial sale to rental agencies; (2) a postponed scheme where a manufacturer postpones the buyback pricing decision to the time of repurchase.

Academic/Practical Relevance: Prior research has not studied how to optimize the timing of buyback pricing decisions, which is practically relevant because both precommitted and postponed schemes have been adopted by manufacturers in a range of durable-goods industries.

Methodology: A two-period dynamic Stackelberg game between three types of firms: manufacturer, dealer, and rental agency.

Results: A monopolist manufacturer earns a lower profit under the precommitted scheme than under the postponed scheme. The equilibrium buyback quantity is zero under the precommitted scheme but positive under the postponed scheme. These results can be explained by two trade-offs that only exist under the precommitted scheme. First, decreasing the buyback price increases the margin of the manufacturer's buyback program but decreases the rental agency's first-period order quantity. Second, increasing the first-period wholesale price offered to the dealer increases the manufacturer's margin in the sales channel but decreases the rental agency's first-period order quantity. When manufacturer competition in the rental market is sufficiently intense, a unique equilibrium may arise where manufacturers choose the precommitted scheme, which maximizes the manufacturers' profits and yields positive buyback quantity.

Managerial Implications: The timing of buyback price decisions for used durable goods critically affects the profitability of buyback programs in dual distribution channels with dealers and rental agencies. Precommitting to a buyback price may put a manufacturer at a disadvantage due to the intermediaries' strategic adjustment of their order quantities. However, competition between manufacturers in the rental market may alleviate this disadvantage thanks to a strategic complementarity between competing manufacturers' buyback prices.

Keywords: dual channel supply chains, durable goods, buyback pricing, manufacturer competition

Suggested Citation

Esenduran, Gokce and Lu, Lauren Xiaoyuan and Swaminathan, Jayashankar M., Buyback Pricing of Durable Goods in Dual Distribution Channels (August 3, 2018). Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Published online in Articles in Advance 22 Oct 2019, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2835244 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2835244

Gokce Esenduran

Purdue University - Department of Management ( email )

West Lafayette, IN 47907-1310
United States

Lauren Xiaoyuan Lu (Contact Author)

Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business ( email )

Hanover, NH 03755
United States

Jayashankar M. Swaminathan

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill - Operations Area ( email )

300 Kenan Center Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
United States

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