A resilient pricing and service quality level decision for fresh agri-product supply chain in post-COVID-19 era

Purpose: This paper investigates how the channel leadership strategies develop a post-coronavirus disease (COVID-19) resilient agri-supply chain, which reduces supplier and retailer's price loss and enhances the logistics service quality level considering logistics outsourcing of agri-product especially for the rapidly changing market condition. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the classical leadership theory, two channel leadership strategies, i.e. LPL and SL, are considered. The proposed framework first derives the equilibrium price and service quality level decision among the supplier, the logistics provider and the retailer. Then it compares both leadership strategies in terms of the equilibrium prices and service quality theoretically. This article also presents a case study of Arabian dates pricing and supply chain to test the theoretically derived propositions. Findings: Selection of suitable leadership strategy is a critical factor for profit maximization of the supply chain drivers and proper optimization of equilibrium price and service quality. Here, the product's quality and the market's socio-economic condition play an important role in selecting a suitable leadership strategy. A random transformation of the physical market to an e-commerce portal creates a wide variation of the market's socio-economic parameters, affecting the equilibrium pricing and the logistics provider's service quality. Research limitations/implications: This study proposes a post-COVID-19 resilient agri-supply chain framework considering price and quality-dependent stochastic market demand, incorporating a wide range of socio-economic factors in the model to counteract the effect of rapid behavior change of agri-market due to COVID-19 norms. This research examines the effect of different channel leadership strategies to facilitate suitable decisions on prices and service quality and retrieve the profit of the supplier, retailer and logistics provider. The future models can incorporate competitiveness in logistics outsourcing, fourth-party logistics (4PL) and contract farming in the agri-supply chain. Each of the extensions can open avenues in different directions. Practical implications: As the post-COVID-19 market and the customer behavior is randomly changing, and the traditional market is rapidly converting into supermarkets and e-commerce portals, this paper examines the model with a wide variety of e-commerce portals with multi-variation of product. It is conclusive that the product's quality and the market's socio-economic behavior significantly impact the equilibrium decision. The drivers of the supply chain must take them into account before choosing a particular channel leadership strategy. Originality/value: This study considers a multi-product and multi-market (e-commerce) model by integrating a wide variety of products and the market's socio-economic parameters. The model is tested in a price and quality-dependent stochastic market condition, contributing to the literature by reconciling two different channel leadership strategies into the global logistics of fresh agri-product.