Pricing and coordinating decisions of closed-loop supply chains with competing retailers collection

Abstract

This paper investigates a closed-loop supply chain system composed of one manufacturer, two competing retailers and one third-party, and discusses the third-party collection model and the competing retailer collection model. In order to study the collection channel performance and optimal pricing policies, we deal with two recycling models. The third-party and the competing retailers collect end-of-life products, the manufacturer subcontracts with third-party to engage in operating the collection of returned and obsolete products. The results show that the competing retailers collection model outperforms the third-party collection model when the third-party is a non-profit organization for recycling and disposing of used and obsolete products. Finally, we perform parameters analysis on performance of the two channel models. Numerical examples are presented to validate our theoretical results and compare channel performances.