The Length of Product Line in Distribution Channels

Yunchuan Liu () and Haitao Cui
Additional contact information
Yunchuan Liu: College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois 61820

Marketing Science, 2010, vol. 29, issue 3, 474-482

Abstract: This paper studies a manufacturer's optimal decisions on extending its product line when the manufacturer sells through either a centralized channel or a decentralized channel. We show that a manufacturer may provide a longer product line for consumers in a decentralized channel than in a centralized channel if the market is fully covered. In addition, a manufacturer's decisions on the length of its product line may not always be optimal from a social welfare perspective in either a centralized or a decentralized channel. Under certain conditions, a decentralized channel can provide the product line length that is socially optimal, whereas a centralized channel cannot.

Keywords: product line; distribution channel; consumer heterogeneity; game theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1090.0533 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:29:y:2010:i:3:p:474-482

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Marketing Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().