A Closed-Loop Supply Chain with Retail Price, Quality, Marketing Effort and Return Policy-Induced Demand Under Different Decision-Making Scenarios

This study examines a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) comprising a manufacturer, a retailer, and a third party entity. The manufacturer presents a commodity and distributes it to the market via the retailer. The responsibility of the third party is to retrieve the used items from the consumers and deliver them to the producer for remanufacturing purposes. The producers remanufacture the secondhand items so that they turn out to have the identical quality to the renewed items. The retailer implements a return policy for their customers. The demand function is influenced by retailer pricing, goods quality, marketing effort level, and return policy. The proposed CLSC model is studied in four distinct scenarios: centralized, decentralized or Nash game, and manufacturer (leader) and retailer (leader) Stackelberg games. We determine the optimal policy in each scenario. Then give an example for evaluating the optimal outcomes, identify a preferable scenario among the four considered, and explore how important factors affect the best decisions.