主题：Retail Sales Advisory and Compensation in a Distribution Channel
主讲人：College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign刘云川教授
主持人：西南财经大学工商管理学院杨石磊教授
时间：2014年7月15日（星期二）下午2:30—4点
地点：光华校区光华楼601会议室
主办单位：工商管理学院科研处
主讲人简介：
Yunchuan (Frank) Liu got his Ph.D. in Marketing of Columbia University in May 2003, and he is an Associate Professor (with tenure) of Business Administration, CollegeofBusiness,UniversityofIllinoisat Urbana-Champaign. Liu published Strategic Production/Service Outsourcing and Competitive Implications in IJRM. Apart from that, he also published other valuable essays in famous magazines. He was honored by MBA Professor of the Year Finalist,CollegeofBusiness, UIUC in 2013, and got the award of Management Science Distinguished Service etc. he took the positions that Editorial Board of Marketing Science from 2005 to 2007, Director of Channel Models of American Marketing Association IOSIG from 2006 to 2007, Co-chair, 2007 Summer AMA etc.
主讲内容：
Big retailers that carry a large assortment of differentiated manufacturer products rely on sales associates to advise consumers, or match consumers with products that suit their particular needs. This study examines a big retailer's incentive to motivate or suppress its sales representative's advising effort in a channel context when the retailer maximizes its profit in interacting with fit-uncertain consumers, the sales representative, and upstream manufacturers competing to sell. We also examine a manufacturer's incentive to offer SPIFF (Sales Person Incentive Funding Formula) payments directly to the retailer's sales representative to award sales of its own product, as well as the retailer's incentive to allow its sales representative to accept such payments. Our analysis shows that better matching between consumers and products may hurt the retailer profit, in which case the retailer cuts its own sales commissions and blocks manufacturer SPIFF programs so as to suppress retail sales advisory. The retailer has incentive to offer sales commissions or allow manufacturer SPIFFs to motivate its sales associates better advising consumers only when the fit probability of products is sufficiently low and the market contains a sufficiently large size of fit-uncertain consumers. Our analysis suggests that the increasingly popular practice among manufacturers to bypass retailers in rewarding retailers' sales representatives enhances consumer welfare; and this insight has important implications for public policy makers who generally hold a negative attitude towards manufacturer kickbacks. Interestingly, our study reveals that how a big retailer manages its interactions with upstream manufacturers critically depends on the fit probability of products, or the matching probability between consumers and products in the market. While a low matching probability forces the retailer to seek coordination from the manufacturers in motivating retail sales advisory, a high matching probability incentivizes the retailer to fight with the manufacturers for a more favorable channel status. Our theoretical insights provide explanations for many observed sales compensation practices at big retailers such as Sears, JC Penney, and Lowes.
