PRICING AND INVENTORY DECISIONS WITH UNCERTAIN SUPPLY AND STOCHASTIC DEMAND

Abstract

We consider a retailer, facing uncertain supply and price-sensitive stochastic demand, who has to make stocking and pricing decisions for a given selling period. We also consider the case when the demand is price-sensitive deterministic and provide a unified framework for the model with additive errors. For both scenarios, we look at the case when the price is set before receiving the supply, called simultaneous pricing and the case when the price is set after receiving it, which is called postponed pricing. We develop a procedure for finding the optimal policy for the retailer with general distributions for the supply and the demand. To study the effect of supply uncertainty on expected profit, we conduct sensitivity analysis and develop results for both pricing scenarios and give insights. The results have important implications for a retailer in the supply chain, where a portion of the inventory may be lost due to variety of factors including mishandling and failure to meet quality standards. The findings shed light on the nature and role of prices and their relationship to supply and demand.