Abstract:

Under the strict regulation of modern anti-monopoly policy， some large retailers commonly reach virtual bargaining through “unspoken agreement” and horizontal bargaining mechanisms to achieve benefits for both parties. However， such an agreement is reached through ideology and has no concrete proof of monopoly. Furthermore， virtual bargaining is not only influenced by its own factors， but also by the strategies of upstream members in the supply chain，such as manufacturer's pricing strategies. The concealment of the retailers' virtual bargaining will make the government encounter a dilemma and hinder the high-quality development of manufacturing enterprise. Therefore， an oligopoly competitive supply chain with one powerful manufacturer and two weak retailers is considered as the research object. A model of retailer virtual bargaining mechanism is built and the effects of retailer virtual bargaining on the supply chain are analyzed as well as the effects of manufacturer pricing strategies and bargaining mechanisms on retailer virtual bargaining. The effects of retailer virtual bargaining on the profits of supply chain members and the entire supply chain under the manufacturer's discriminatory wholesale pricing strategy are analyzed. The findings suggest that retailers do not always have an incentive to achieve the virtual bargaining equilibrium， and it is closely related to the channel status. In particular， the virtual bargaining equilibrium can be achieved only when the channel status is comparable. When retailers engage in virtual bargaining， virtual bargaining benefits the retailers but hurts the manufacturer and the entire supply chain. The effects of manufacturer pricing strategies on retailer virtual bargaining are then investigated. It is uncovered that the virtual bargaining equilibrium has a smaller related with the wholesale pricing strategy. That is， when the channel status is comparable， retailers always have incentives to engage in VB regardless of the manufacturer's uniform wholesale pricing and discriminatory wholesale pricing strategies. The profits of two wholesale pricing strategies are further compared and it is found that the manufacturer prefers discriminatory wholesale pricing strategies， while the supply chains prefer uniform wholesale pricing strategies. This observation can be used to explain the reason why the government bans the manufacturer provides discriminatory wholesale pricing strategy. In the extension section， the effects of bargaining mechanisms on retailer virtual bargaining are investigated. It is found that when retailers bargaining with manufacturer， vertical Nash bargaining can undermine the disadvantageous degree of the virtual bargaining to the supply chain system under certain conditions， while vertical egalitarian bargaining do not work well， and may worsens the supply chain's double marginalization impact. The above findings can broaden the concept of tacit collusion and enrich the theoretical framework for supply chain management， as well as have practical significance in guiding the high-quality development of manufacturing enterprises and the design of the government's per-regulatory mechanism for anti-monopoly.

Key words: competitive supply chain, virtual bargaining, unspoken agreement, pricing strategy