research-article

A choice of selling format in the online marketplace with cross-sales supply chain: Platform selling or traditional reselling?

Authors:

Xingzheng AiAuthors Info & Claims

Electronic Commerce Research, Volume 21, Issue 2

Pages 393 - 422

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-019-09370-7

Published: 01 June 2021 Publication History

Abstract

In the online retail market, how to work with upstream suppliers is a key issue for downstream online retailers (e-retailers). Online retailers can choose between functioning either as the “two-sided platforms” (e.g., Taobao.com or eBay.com) allowing suppliers to sell directly to customers by paying a revenue-sharing fee, or as the “resellers” (e.g., Wal-mart.com or JingDong.com) that purchase products from suppliers, and then resell them to customers. Given the rapid growth of e-commerce over past few years, this choice, which is the focus of this article, has become an important practice-based decision. We develop a game-theoretic model for a cross-sales supply chain in which two suppliers deal with two common online retailers. As Stackelberg leaders, online retailers can operate either as a two-sided platform (serving both suppliers and customers) or as a reseller (ordering from suppliers and selling competing products on its own platform). Each supplier adopts either an exclusive-sales strategy, selling products through an exclusive e-retailer, or a cross-sales strategy, selling products through two e-retailers. We analyze the optimal decisions for both e-retailers and suppliers in competing supply chains and describe the system equilibrium for the online marketplace.

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Cited By

Tian YDan BLiu MLei TMa S(2023)Strategic introduction for competitive fresh produce in an e-commerce platform with demand information sharingElectronic Commerce Research10.1007/s10660-022-09598-w23:4(2907-2941)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10660-022-09598-w

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Published In

cover image Electronic Commerce Research

Electronic Commerce Research Volume 21, Issue 2

Jun 2021

419 pages

ISSN:1389-5753

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© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019.

Publisher

Kluwer Academic Publishers

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 June 2021

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the National Natural Science Foundation of China
the Ministry of education of the humanities and Social Sciences of China

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Cited By

Tian YDan BLiu MLei TMa S(2023)Strategic introduction for competitive fresh produce in an e-commerce platform with demand information sharingElectronic Commerce Research10.1007/s10660-022-09598-w23:4(2907-2941)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10660-022-09598-w

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