Combined Sales Effort and Inventory Control under Demand Uncertainty
We study the joint inventory and sales effort management problems of a retailer in a broad context and investigate the optimal policies for a single item, periodic-review system. In each period, the demand is uncertain depending on the sales effort level exerted by the retailer, which incurs an asso...
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Main Authors: | , , |
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Wiley
2013-01-01
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Series: | Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/984513 |
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Summary: | We study the joint inventory and sales effort management problems of a retailer in a broad context and investigate the optimal policies for a single item, periodic-review system. In each period, the demand is uncertain depending on the sales effort level exerted by the retailer, which incurs an associated cost. The retailer’s objective is to find a joint optimal inventory replenishment and sales effort policy to maximize the discounted profit over a finite horizon. We first consider a basic setting with zero setup cost and no batch ordering, under which the base stock list sales effort policy is optimal. Two extensions are then investigated: (1) the case with nonzero setup cost, under which we show that (s,S,e) policy is optimal; and (2) the case with batch ordering, under which we prove the optimality of the (r,Nq,e) policy. Finally, we conduct numerical studies to provide additional managerial insights. |
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ISSN: | 1026-0226 1607-887X |