Title:
How Should a Firm Manage Deteriorating Inventory? (ed.1)
How Should a Firm Manage Deteriorating Inventory? (ed.1)
Author(s)
Ferguson, Mark E.
Koenigsberg, Oded
Koenigsberg, Oded
Advisor(s)
Editor(s)
Collections
Supplementary to
Permanent Link
Abstract
Firms selling goods whose quality level deteriorates over time often face difficult
decisions when unsold inventory remains. Since the leftover product is often perceived
to be of lower quality than the new product, carrying it over to the next period offers
the firm a second selling opportunity, but at a reduced price. By doing so, however, the firm subjects sales of its new product to competition from the leftover product. We present a dynamic model that captures the effect of this competition on the firm's production and pricing decisions. We characterize the firm's optimal strategy and find conditions under which the firm is better of carrying all, some, or none of its
leftover inventory to the next period. We also show that the price of the new product
is independent of the quality level of the leftover product. Finally, we relax the model
assumption and assume that there is demand uncertainty in both periods. We run a
simulation and find that the firm finds it optimal to introduce the old units only if the
level of uncertainty is low and does not exceed a certain threshold.
Sponsor
Date Issued
2004-09-14
Extent
464410 bytes
Resource Type
Text
Resource Subtype
Working Paper