Competition and cooperation in the dual-channel green supply chain with customer satisfaction

With the widespread popularity of green and environmental protection concepts, customer satisfaction with green marketing in the green supply chain is particularly important, and channel green marketing is an important part of the green supply chain. Thus, this paper studies competition and cooperation strategies in the pricing and green marketing of a dual-channel supply chain while considering customer satisfaction. Using a two-stage optimization method and the Stackelberg game, we explore two cooperation models. In the first model, two retailers cooperate and compete with the manufacturer; in the second model, retailer 1 cooperates with the manufacturer and competes with retailer 2. It finds that because of the influence of customer satisfaction, the optimal price is not always proportional to green marketing efforts, and retailers with a higher market share may not necessarily have higher profits. The manufacturer, even if it is in competition with retailers, in some cases should actively help retailers improve green marketing to increase profits. Finally, we note that the cooperation strategy in a green supply chain is influenced by the relationship between green marketing and customer satisfaction.