The 6th International Conference on Modern Management based on Big Data (MMBD 2025)

Abstract: This study examines how a retailer chooses suppliers and sets pricing strategies. The retailer can either select a single supplier, offering one product, or engage with two suppliers to provide quality-differentiated products. The retailer also needs to decide between uniform pricing and personalized pricing. The study finds that a retailer may prefer using both suppliers, even if one product does not sell. If the retailer opts for a single supplier, it chooses personalized pricing to maximize profit by adjusting prices based on consumer valuation. When selecting both suppliers, the pricing strategy depends on the cost of collecting consumer data. The retailer might use uniform or personalized pricing for both products or mix the two approaches, depending on the products’ relative selling efficiency and the cost of collecting data on consumer valuation. When product quality can be endogenously determined, the retailer is more likely to engage both suppliers and adopt personalized pricing strategies.

Biography: Jing Chen holds the William A. Black Chair in Commerce and is a Professor in the Department of Management Science & Information Systems at the Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University. Her research interests include competitive channel and supply chain management, the interface between operations management and marketing, and customer returns. She has published over 90 papers in journals. She is currently serving as an Associate Editor for The International Journal of Management Science (OMEGA), The Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS), and International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR).