The emergence of a new marketing channel affects the economy by expanding the consumer's choice of products, altering the competitiveness of retail markets and having an influence on manufacturers' profitability. The electronic commerce channel through the Internet constitutes a typical marketing channel with these features. In this paper, we construct a vertical product differentiation model comprising an upstream manufacturer and two downstream retailers. Our model is closely related to that in Chiang, Chhajed and Hess (2003). We incorporate cost asymmetry across the retailers into the model, a new feature which is not in their model. In this model, the manufacturer not only produces a physical product it sells to the downstream retailers, but also has an option of "versioning" to open a new direct channel for an alternate digital product. We find that, when the marginal cost of the physical product is in some range given other cost parameters, the direct digital channel reduces the quantity of the physical product sold by the inefficient retailer even if it increases total quantity of the physical product. We also find that, when it is higher than the above-mentioned range, the direct digital channel increases the quantity of the physical product sold by the efficient retailer even if it reduces its total quantity. Cost asymmetry across the retailers plays a role in these results. Taking the above results into account, we discuss managerial implications for a manufacturer supplying the physical and digital products.

Multichannel sales strategies are now very popular owing to the prevalence of the Internet, which makes it much easier for manufacturers to engage in direct sales. Because direct channels, including catalogs and the Internet, compete against, substitute for, or complement conventional retail channels, finding the best way to utilize them in conjunction with retail channels continues to be a challenge for many firms. Specifically, multiple channels give rise to channel conflict when the channels compete for almost the same market with substitutable products. To avoid this channel conflict, some manufacturers, such as Daimler, Nikon, and Rubbermaid, have used the Internet as a medium to provide information about their products and/or to point users of the Internet to the nearest retailer carrying the product, but without offering the product for sale directly over the Internet. Dell, which is arguably the most successful Internet marketer in the personal computer market, opened kiosk locations in shopping malls across the US from 2002, and has operated full-scale manufacturer-owned stores since late 2006. However, in 2008, Dell shut down all of its kiosks in the US and instead expanded into retail stores, such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy. Furthermore, IBM redirects orders taken at ibm.com to its distributors in an attempt to mitigate the conflict, and HP gives their intermediaries a commission fee for orders placed online. In the context of multichannel management, the question of to what degree a manufacturer should set a direct price to coordinate all channels has commanded significant attention from both academic and practical viewpoints. However, marketing research addressing when a manufacturer should determine the direct price is missing from the existing literature, although it is a critical practical issue for manufacturers that adopt a multichannel sales strategy. Given the current status of the literature, this paper investigates the optimal timing of pricing by a manufacturer managing two types of marketing channel, a retail channel and a direct channel, using a dynamic noncooperative game framework. Traditionally, analytical marketing models describing channel conflict between these two channels examine price competition where the retail and direct prices are established simultaneously. In contrast to this conventional approach, our model demonstrates that such a simultaneous price competition never arises if the manufacturer and retailer can choose not only the level of price, but also the timing of pricing. If the manufacturer has sold products wholesale to a retailer presuming that the manufacturer will set the direct price before the retailer prices, the retailer accelerates the timing of retail pricing prior to the direct price setting by the manufacturer. Our findings suggest that the manufacturer should post the direct price before or upon, but not after, selling products wholesale to a retailer. Such upfront posting of the direct price not only constitutes the unique subgame perfect Nash equilibrium (SPNE) of the noncooperative game between channel members, but also maximizes profits for the manufacturer. The logic behind this outcome is as follows. If the manufacturer determines the Despite the significant amount of marketing research on multichannel management, an overview of the literature suggests that research incorporating the choice of optimal pricing timing into channel operation issues is completely lacking, despite the fact that the timing for posting the direct price is a crucial problem for manufacturers. That is, the existing marketing literature treats the order of moves of channel members as exogenously given, which is rather surprising because each member is expected to maximize its own profits in the context of a standard price-setting game. From a multichannel management perspective, this paper addresses the issue of the endogenous order of moves by adopting the established observable delay game framework (e.g., Hamilton and Slutsky 1990). Therefore, it is worth noting that the present paper is the first to introduce the idea of endogenous choice of decision timing in the field of marketing research. Our findings imply that the addition of a direct channel and the posting of a direct price after the sale of a substantial number of products through a traditional retail channel—a common multichannel strategy in practice—is inferior from the viewpoint of overall profit maximization. If a manufacturer employs such a strategy, it fails to coordinate the marketing channels and to maximize the channel profits. Indeed, as noted at the beginning of this section, many dominant manufacturers in various industries have withdrawn their direct channels. Our model effectively explains such real cases, providing useful managerial insights for business practitioners.

본 연구는 케이블TV SO의 직사채널의 현황과 방송법상 근거를 점검하고, 직접 사용 채널을 둘러싼 쟁점을 바탕으로 실무자와 연구자를 대상으로 전문가 심층인터뷰를 통해 직사채널의 활용방안에 대한 분석을 실시하였다. 연구결과 첫째, 실무자와 연구자들은 직접사용 채널의 개념을 모르거나 혼용하고, 애매모호하게 이해하고 있었다. 이는 방송법 자체가 직접사용 채널을 모호하고 불명확하게 기술하고 있는 점과 관련이 깊은 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 전국의 케이블TV SO 95개 사업자 가운데 65개 사업자가 직접사용 채널을 편성하지 않고 있는데, 응답자들은 그 이유를 한편으로는 SO사업자의 인력과 재정의 한계, 동시에 다른 한편으로는 직접사용 채널의 운용에 대한 구체적인 가이드라인 부재 등 법령의 미비와 그 운용에 대해 소극적인 정부정책 때문인 것으로 인식하고 있었다. 셋째, 응답자들은 케이블TV가 소수의 거대 MSO 체제로 재편되면서 나타난 지역성 약화와 상업주의 심화의 부작용을 완화하는 데 직접사용 채널이 긍정적인 역할을 할 수 있도록 관련 법령과 정책을 개선하는 것이 필요하다는 인식에 공감하고 있었다.

The proliferation of the internet and electronic commerce has given the manufacturers the opportunity of direct marketing. This study analyzes the decision of manufacturers regarding whether to sell the products through independent sales company or to sel

본 연구에서는 고속수로에서 변위센서를 이용하여 소류력 측정장치를 개발하였다. 최근 강우강도 및 홍수발생빈도의 증가로 제방, 고수부지, 저수로 등의 유실피해가 발생하고 있다. 이와 같은 문제점을 보완하기 위하여 호안블록 등의 다양한 보호공법이 적용되고 있다. 호안공법 및 호안공법 재료의 수리적 안정성 분석을 위해서 소류력에 대한 평가는 필수적이다. 대부분의 소류력 측정은 간접적인 방법으로 유속측정을 통하여 계산되어져 왔다. 하지만 하상유속을 정확히 측정하는 것은 매우 어려운 일이며 평균 소류력을 사용하여 수충부, 비수충부 등 구간별 소류력 분석 등에 대한 구체적인 연구가 미흡한 실정이다. 개발된 소류력 측정장치를 이용하여 공법 및 재료에 대한 정량적이고 객관적인 한계 소류력이 제시되면 하천 피해 절감과 과대 및 과소 설계를 방지 할 것으로 기대된다.