Can Margin Differences in Vertical Marketing Channels Lead to Contracts with Slotting Fees?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In this paper, we show that slotting fees can be part of an equilibrium solution if per-unit downstream margin is smaller than the per-unit upstream margin. In recent literature, a similar margin-based argument is made by Klein and Wright (2007), whereas intense downstream retail competition coupled with high upstream margin causes upstream manufacturers to offer slotting fees for promotional shelf space. In this paper, we generalize this argument and show that it is possible to have the margin-based argument without any downstream retail competition and competition between products within a retail chain. Interestingly we show that slotting fees will be larger if the products sold by a retailer are complements rather than substitutes. Using a model of a channel bargaining game, we also provide the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of slotting fees and show that for contracts with slotting fees under full vertical coordination, upstream marginal cost functions need to be increasing. Broadly, our findings provide new insights into the strategic role of downstream product assortment on equilibrium-marketing-channel contracts with slotting fees. This paper was accepted by J. Miguel Villas-Boas, marketing.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.027 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.009 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.020 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".