Research The Choice Of Operation Modes Of Online Retailers And Categories Optimization Based On Platform Services

Online retail is growing rapidly after the 21 st century.Recently,online retailers have adopted reselling mode which have started online platform connecting sellers and buyer,such as JD and Amazon.More interestingly,there are also examples of online retailers(eg.Zappos.com)that started as online platforms but have now switched completely to the reselling mode.Last decade,online retailing platform is rapid development,and consumers prefer variety products and online retail sales have been growing steadily year by year.At the same time,consumers have higher requirements for online retail platform services and variety products,which is new challenge to operation modes and categories management for online retailers.Hence,this paper develops the operation mode selection of online retailing platform with endogenous platform services.The platform services include online shopping convenience,product information,product quality supervision and after-sales services,which affect market demand and consumer transaction and,the reputation of online retail platform and long-term development.This thesis studies the choice of operation modes for monopoly and competition online platforms separately.In addition,the thesis studies categories optimization of online retailing platform in the presence of product market risks and economics of scale.Frist,in monopoly online retailing platform with endogenous platform services,the online retailer offers platform services and chooses operation modes.The competing suppliers are leaders.In addition,we firstly define the cost index of the platform service-add value.Then,we explore the three modes of the online retailing platform-reselling mode,platform mode and hybrid mode and investigate how the cost index of the value-added platform service affect the choice of operation modes of the online retailing platform and the optimal strategies for suppliers.The results show: the platform service level is higher in the platform mode than the reselling mode when the competition intensities of between suppliers and the cost index of the value-added platform services is low.The online retailing platform chooses the platform mode when the supplier's scale is small and the suppliers themselves also prefer the platform modes.It can achieve Pareto improvement when the sharing ratio locates in a certain region.Second,in the competition online retailing platform,assuming that the traditional retailing price is exogenous,and that the spillover effects are positive and negative,and that the sellers offer platform services.This chapter examines three competition frameworks: both reselling modes,both platform modes and hybrid modes.Moreover,how the platform service parameter,spillover effects and competition intensities of between platforms impact the choice of the online retailing platform.The results show the conditions that the platform mode is dominant.The last,this chapter firstly develops the categories optimization model for the online retailing platform.Based on this model,it investigates the categories optimization and assortment planning form the product risks and economics of scale perspective.The results show that under independent categories setting,the online retailer who owns the online retailing platform choose platform modes to manage categories when the degree of economics of scale is low;otherwise,it choose itself managing categories.Under substitute categories setting,the online retailer's profits is increasing first and then declining with the number level of categories increasing;however,the suppliers' profits always decrease.In addition,no matter the product market risks,the online retailer prefers itself selling and managing categories when the degree of economics of scale is high.