Download This PaperBuyer Financing in Pull Supply Chains: Zero-Interest Early Payment or In-House Factoring?
Xiangfeng Chen, Qihui Lu, and Gangshu Cai. 2020. Buyer Financing in Pull Supply Chains: Zero-Interest Early Payment or In-House Factoring? Production and Operations Management. Forthcoming.
52 Pages Posted: 21 Aug 2017 Last revised: 30 Apr 2020
Date Written: August 17, 2017
Abstract
This paper investigates the efficacy of zero-interest early payment financing (alternatively referred to as early payment) and positive-interest in-house factoring financing in a pull supply chain with a capital-constrained manufacturer selling a product through a capital-abundant retailer. Early payment is the prepayment of a wholesale cost to the manufacturer, whereas in-house factoring is a loan service provided to the manufacturer by a branch financing firm of the same retailer. We find that the retailer prefers early payment financing to bank financing when the manufacturer’s production cost is low. If the retailer instead offers positive-interest inhouse factoring financing to the manufacturer, then the financing equilibrium domain enlarges as compared to bank financing. Interestingly, early payment financing can outplay positive-interest in-house factoring financing if the production cost is considerably low; otherwise, vice versa. When the production cost is big enough, the retailer will not provide either early payment or in-house factoring. Furthermore, our main qualitative result sustains with an identical wholesale price across all three financing schemes and the financing equilibrium domain of early payment shrinks as demand variability grows.
Keywords: bank financing; early payment financing; in-house factor financing; pull supply chain; newsvendor
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