Interaction between rebate strategy and wholesale-ordering contracts under retailer optimism and information asymmetry

The manufacturer-rebate where the manufacturer directly provides consumer rebates and the channel-rebate where the manufacturer stimulates downstream retailers to sell more products with channel rebates are two typical rebate strategies for manufacturers to increase sales. Considering the prevalence of rebate promotions and the downstream retailer’s optimism on the effect of rebating consumers, we incorporate rebate promotions, retailers’ optimism, and the corresponding information asymmetry issue into the manufacturer’s wholesale-ordering contract design problem. We find that with rebate promotions, the wholesale price and the order quantity should be higher than without rebate promotion. Specially, under the manufacturer-rebate strategy, the wholesale price and the order quantity should increase with the manufacturer’s rebate and the retailer’s optimism. However, under the channel-rebate strategy, the order quantity (the wholesale price) is no longer affected by the manufacturer’s rebate (the retailer’s optimism). Moreover, when the retailer’s optimism is private information, the retailer’s information distortion behaviors under the two rebate strategies are similar, but the manufacturer should accept different kinds of wholesale price-order quantity contract menus to reveal the retailer’s information and maximize profits. Specifically, under the manufacturer-rebate strategy (the channel-rebate strategy), differentiated contracts (a pooling contract) to different types of retailers are optimal. Besides, under the manufacturer-rebate strategy, the value of the rebate can play a moderating role in contract design. Hence, when the rebate is exogenously decided, the manufacturer can punish the retailer who is likely to distort information by decreasing the rebate.