Pricing Decision of the Dual-Channel Supply Chain with the Manufacturer’s Extended Warranty
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This study proposed the models and tested the models for dual-channel supply chains. The topic is very interesting. But, the way of presenting the result and findings of this study need quite poor and there are a few concerns based on my observation.
Other remarks for this submission follow:
Basic concern, there are a lot of studies conducted in the context of single channel and warranty and a few other papers published in the context of the dual-channel supply chain, and customer context. Therefore, what is the contribution of the current study? And, what is the research gap of this study? These are the main drawbacks of this submission's present version.
Comment 1: In the introduction, the authors should carefully investigate more recent literature related to mismatch demand issues to clarify the gaps. It is necessary to clear the motivation of the study.
Comment 2: The contribution of the application to the literature should be further emphasized. In section 2, the authors systematically summarized the present literature on this topic. However, I strongly recommend that try to highlight the main limitations of current models.
Comment 3: The Models and solutions and section 3, is well written. This is one of the main strengths of the current paper.
Comment 4: The numerical results (section 5) should be discussed in a more detailed and critical way. In addition, performing the sensitivity analysis is a good idea, but the result presentation is not clear. If possible please add a separate sub-section for sensitivity analysis.
Comment 5: This is another weakness of this submission. The conclusions (section 6) can be more in-depth and elaborate on the significance of the findings. In order to make the conclusion section clear, the authors are highly encouraged to include the point-by-point findings of this article.
Comment 6: I request authors to add a section called managerial insights, what is the advantage of using such analysis in society as well as in the industrial sector?
Comment 7: Please add the limitations of this study in the conclusion section.
Comment 8: I highly recommend a comprehensive readout and revision to improve the quality of the language. Authors should also check the whole manuscript as it has some typos, and correct the spellings and abbreviations and the names throughout the whole manuscript.
Comment 9: Try to add a few more references in recent times.
Example: “…... product [28]” in line 124: this reference appeared after [22]. Please cross-check the whole reference in the text.
I highly recommend a comprehensive readout and revision to improve the quality of the language. Authors should also check the whole manuscript as it has some typos, and correct the spellings and abbreviations and the names throughout the whole manuscript.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper investigates the decision making of the supply chain players. We develop three game models to study this problem, and they are: the basic model without extended warranty (Model B), the decentralized decision model with the manufacturer's extended warranty (Model M), and the centralized decision model with the manufacturer's ex- tended warranty (Model C). The topic is interesting and meaningful.
Some issues are concerned as follows.
1. The “decision- making” in the title is not specific, and from the perspective of the paper, it is a problem of pricing decisions and the selection of extension strategies. Suggest modifying the title to make it more relevant to the content.
2. The abstract introduces some conclusions, but it is not yet complete. For example, sensitivity analysis was conducted, but the conclusions and findings were not reflected in the abstract.
3. There are slightly fewer keywords, five keywords are recommended.
4. The paper reviews the literature and explains what research has been conducted but does not specify its contribution or where it compensates for theoretical gaps compared to other literature.
5. It is recommended to introduce the optimization solution in the form of lemmas, and the solving process is presented in the appendix in a proof. his can enhance the organization of the paper.
6. How is the conclusion of the proposition drawn? The proof process or idea should be provided, such as position 1-4.
7. The figures are not clear, it is recommended to make some modifications.
8. Some management insights should be developed in the conclusions section.
9. In the inference, some Chinese publishing marks should be moved, such as [J].
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
- the literature review is very poor and should be radically developed; I suggest the creation of a separate chapter about the theoretical background for the proposed research study; please indicate selected definitions of the terms crucial for the research, not only a review of similar literature studies;
- please explain the possibilities of calculations of the parameters determined for the study; do you suggest one or more methods of their calculations? If more, how various versions of the calculations may influence the currently determined impact of the parameters on demands, decisions, and profits?
- what are the limitations of the research?
- please add the discussion chapter, so how do the results of the study correspond to the actual literature findings?
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors addressed all comments carefully. However, Minor editing of the English language and careful proofreading are required.
Minor editing of English language required.
Author Response
Thank you for your careful review and constructive suggestions regarding our manuscript. In the revised version, we have improved the writing of the manuscript, and double checked the grammatical errors and typos.
Best regards.
Reviewer 2 Report
I have read the revision report and thank you for improving the paper.
Author Response
Thank you for your careful review and constructive suggestions regarding our manuscript.
Best regards.
Reviewer 3 Report
- please indicate clearly the aim of the paper in the Introduction chapter;
- the literature review is still very poor; please explain the most important terms of the paper due to pivotal authors' interpretations, so dual-channel supply chain, pricing decision, logistics customer service, customers’ buying preferences, extended warranty;
- My previous question, cit.: „Please explain the possibilities of calculations of the parameters determined for the study; do you suggest one or more methods of their calculations? If more, how various versions of the calculations may influence the currently determined impact of the parameters on demands, decisions, and profits?”
Authors’ reply: „Thank you for this comment and suggestion, but we are sorry to say that we don't quite understand this sentence. The default values of model parameters in numerical experiments are based on the data presented in Panda et al. [22] and Zhang et al. [29].”
My additional explanation-question: if you try to apply your models in the real dual-channel supply chain, how would you estimate consumer preference for the retail channel? And how would you estimate the rest of the parameters? What methods can you use to estimate the parameters?
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
Unfortunately, after the second Authors’ response, I have no doubts that the paper should be rejected. The authors confirmed in the second review round that the paper has no basis in theoretical background, did not find the literature gaps, has very weak references.
I offer the Authors a third chance, but the last one. Please carefully read the remarks and correct the paper:
- Please check the definition of the literature review. Then please DO CORRECT literature review, as you previously sent version for this remark is only CRITICAL IGNORANCE for this point;
- Please check the definition of the term defining… Your definition as below is the best example of how NOT TO define the term.
„Dual-channel supply chain refers to a dual-channel sales model supply chain system…(…).”
3. There is no discussion part of the paper – once again please add it.
4. If you answer: „When using this model in an actual two-
channel supply chain, we can generally estimate the value range of the parameters in two ways for these parameters involved. If the industry and market have relevant first-hand data, you can directly use the correlation function to fit and estimate the value range of the parameters. If data is unavailable, parameters can be assessed through behavioral experiments or questionnaire design.”…
Now please refere to the previous question, so: please explain how various versions of the estimations may influence the currently determined impact of the parameters on demands, decisions, and profits?
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.doc
Round 4
Reviewer 3 Report
- the theoretical background is a little bit better nowbut still too poor.
The literature as below is basic for the paper’s theory and minimum which should be included in references:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2011.11.005
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-7953-5_13
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2008.08.053
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9134.2006.00101.x
https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1120.1604
https://doi.org/10.1515/jlst-2015-0002
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2009.12.012
- as about the versions of the estimations, the expected answer on my question is not included in the Authors’ reply, but within the methodology presented may be consider as less importnat for the crucial aim of the paper
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
