关键词: 资金约束零售商, 渠道权力结构, 第三方物流(3PL), 采购和融资策略

Abstract: When a retailer confronts with the fund shortage problem, the retailer often purchases goods with the help of supply chain financing. There are two popular purchasing and financing modes for the capital-constrained retailer, one is trade credit mode (i.e. the retailer purchases directly from the supplier and accepts his service of delay in payment), and the other is 3PL financing service mode (i.e. the 3PL firm helps the retailer purchase from supplier and lends him). In addition, there are different channel power structures in market. Therefore, it is worth to study purchasing and financing strategies of retailer in a supply chain consisting of one supplier, one 3PL firm and one capital-constrained retailer under different channel power structures and financing modes.
In this paper, it is assumed that the supply chain comprises a supplier, a 3PL firm and a capital-constrained retailer. Three kinds of channel power structures are considered, namely S power structure (i.e. the supplier is the leader), L power structure (i.e. the 3PL firm is the leader) and N power structure (i.e. the supplier and the 3PL firm are both the leaders). The supplier can provide the trade credit service and the 3PL firm can offer the 3PL financing service for retailer. Furthermore, the Stackelberg games are analyzed and obtain the supplier's optimal wholesale price, the 3PL's optimal transportation fee and the retailer's optimal sale price under different channel power structures and financing modes are obtained, respectively. Further, by comparing the profits of all supply chain participants in different cases, the purchasing and financing strategies of capital-constrained retailer are analyzed. Finally, some numerical studies are conducted to show the impacts of the retailer's initial capital on the retailer's profit, the 3PL's profit and the profit of supplier, and to analyze the impacts of 3PL's interest rate on the pricing strategies of all supply chain participants.
This paper shows several important results through the theoretical analysis. First, under the S power structure, the retailer should choose the trade credit mode; under the L power structure, the retailer should choose the 3PL financing service mode; under the N power structure, the retailer should choose the financing mode with the higher interest rate. Second, the supplier and the 3PL firm should both earlier announce their own pricing strategies; under the N power structure, the supplier and the 3PL firm should both increase their own interest rates. Last, the supplier obtains the highest profit under S power structure when he offers financing service for retailer; the 3PL firm obtains the highest profit under L power structure when he offers financing service for retailer.
Two useful managerial implications are obtained based on our study. On the one hand, the capital-constrained retailer should consider the channel power structure in market when he chooses the financing mode. On the other hand, the supplier and the 3PL firm should improve their own ability to obtain dominant right in market, which can bring the higher profit for them.

Key words: capital-constrained retailer, channel power structure, the third-party logistics (3PL), purchasing and financing strategies