Analysis of coordination mechanisms in a two-echelon supply chain

Coordinating the supply chain is a main object of supply chain management, and an inventory decision model is developed to analyze the coordination of a two-echelon supply chain with one supplier and one retailer. The products in our paper are perishable and sold over a single selling season. After discussing a pure wholesale price contract, we put forward a return contract. Then several tactics are proposed to improve the performance of the traditional return contract. All our findings are illustrated by a numerical example.