Newsvendor models for innovative products with one-shot decision theory

•Give general solutions and existence theorem in one-shot decision theory.•A method to obtain possibility distributions of innovative products’ demands.•Propose a completely new newsvendor model for an innovative product.•Provide a fundamental alternative to analyze the newsvendor problems.•Gain managerial insights into newsvendor problems for innovative products.

In this paper, newsvendor problems for innovative products are analyzed. Because the product is new, no relevant historical data is available for statistical demand analysis. Instead of using the probability distribution, the possibility distribution is utilized to characterize the uncertainty of the demand. We consider products whose life cycles are expected to be smaller than the procurement lead times. Determining optimal order quantities of such products is a typical one-shot decision problem for a retailer. Therefore, newsvendor models for innovative products are proposed based on the one-shot decision theory (OSDT). The main contributions of this research are as follows: the general solutions of active, passive, apprehensive and daring focus points and optimal alternatives are proposed and the existence theorem is established in the one-shot decision theory; a simple and effective approach for identifying the possibility distribution is developed; newsvendor models with four types of focus points are built; managerial insights into the behaviors of different types of retailers are gained by the theoretical analysis; the proposed models are scenario-based decision models which provide a fundamental alternative to analyze newsvendor problems for innovative products.