Abstract: The price difference caused by manufacturers’ price discrimination strategies in different regions is the fundamental reason for the emergence of the gray market. In most cases, consumers cannot accurately know the source information of product channels, so some speculators may disguise gray market products as authorized products for sale, so as to obtain higher profits. This will cause consumers in the high price market to buy gray market products at a higher price, when they expect to buy licensed products, which seriously damages the interests of consumers. By introducing the RFID or blockchain information-tracing technology, manufacturers can effectively curb the improper behavior of gray market speculators to trade inferior products for superior ones, and reduce the probability of consumers who expect to buy high priced licensed products, but turn out to buy gray market products.
This paper considers a gray market supply chain composed of a brand manufacturer and a retailer participating in gray market speculation. We build three game models dominated by the manufacturer in three cases, and explore the impact of the information-tracing technology adopted by the manufacturer on the decision-making and operation of the gray market supply chain. Firstly, taking no traceability technology as the benchmark model, we find that the probability of consumers buying high-price products and the preference coefficient of consumers for gray market products will directly or indirectly affect the sales of the three types of products, and then affect the profits of the manufacturer and the retailer. Increasing the probability of consumers buying high priced products has a dual effect. On the one hand, the increasing probability can inhibit the expansion of the gray market. On the other hand, it may also bring additional benefits to manufacturers and improve the efficiency of the supply chain. Subsequently, taking the application of the traceability technology which can trace the source of product channels into consideration, the RFID technology and blockchain technology are introduced in turn. We find that the introduction of different information traceability technologies will have a significant impact on the price and demand of authorized channel products. In addition, adopting information traceability can effectively inhibit the expansion of gray market, but the effects vary from one technology to another. Due to the “free rider” phenomenon without any cost, the retailer always benefits from the blockchain technology, but the profit and loss of the manufacturer is closely related to the fixed cost of the blockchain. When the costs of the two traceability technologies are equal, the manufacturer can obtain higher profit by using the blockchain than RFID.
Furthermore, whether the manufacturer chooses to introduce the tracing technology is closely related to his goals. If the goal is to curb gray market expansion, he should introduce the tracing technology, and which technology he chooses is also related to the marginal cost of RFID. When the cost is low (high), RFID (the blockchain) inhibition effect is better than the blockchain (RFID). If the goal is global expansion, he should not introduce the tracing technology or the blockchain technology. The introduction of RFID is not conducive to global expansion. If the goal is to maximize his own profit, the manufacturer should introduce (not introduce) the blockchain when the cost of the blockchain is low (high). Whether to introduce RFID is also closely related to the marginal cost of RFID; under the same cost expenditure, the introduction of the blockchain is better than RFID. In practice, manufacturers should decide whether to introduce the information-tracing technology according to their own goals.
The conclusions of this paper provide theoretical supports for manufacturers to introduce the information-tracing technology in the gray market environment, and enrich the research on gray market supply chain pricing. The research can be further expanded. For example, we consider the incentive of information traceability to consumers’ purchase behavior, but do not involve the incentive to restrain retailers’ gray-market speculation. We study the specific case where the consumer valuation follows uniform distribution, which can be extended to the case of general probability distribution in the future. These problems will become the focus of our next research work.

Key words: gray market, supply chain, information-tracing, RFID, blockchain, pricing strategy

摘要： 考虑由一个品牌制造商和一个参与灰市投机的零售商组成的灰市供应链,探究制造商引入灰市产品信息追溯技术对灰市供应链决策和运作的影响。首先,以无追溯技术作为基准模型,发现消费者购买高价产品的概率及消费者对灰市产品的偏好系数均会直接或间接影响三类产品的销售状况,进而影响制造商和零售商的利润;提升消费者购买到高价产品的概率具有双重作用,该概率的提升一方面能够抑制灰市扩张,另一方面也可能为制造商带来额外收益并提升灰市供应链运作效率。随后,考虑制造商采用追溯技术追溯产品渠道来源,依次引入RFID技术和区块链技术,发现不同信息追溯技术的引入会对授权渠道产品的价格和需求产生显著的影响。同时,采取信息追溯可有效抑制灰市扩张,但不同技术的抑制作用存在差异;零售商总是受益于区块链技术的引入,这源于其无需支出任何成本导致的“搭便车”现象,但制造商的损益状况还与区块链的固定成本密切相关;在两种追溯技术成本支出相等的情形下,较之RFID技术,制造商采用区块链技术可获得更高的利润。

关键词: 灰色市场, 供应链, 信息追溯, RFID, 区块链, 定价策略