Research On Information Disclosure, Marketing Service Model And Pricing Strategy Of E-commerce Platform

With the development of e-commerce,more and more suppliers sell products to consumers through e-commerce platforms.Based on different pricing mechanisms,platforms and suppliers usually adopt two different operating modes: agency mode and reseller model(or self-operated model).In the agency model,the supplier determines the product price,sells the product directly to consumers and shares the revenue with the platform under a proportional fee.Under the reseller model(or self-operated model),the platform purchases products from suppliers and then sells them to consumers.In reality,firms know more information than consumers.On the one hand,there exists information asymmetry in product(matching)attributes between consumers and product suppliers/platforms,firms can determine whether to disclose or not and how much to disclose.Previous studies focused on the quality disclosure under the traditional pricing model(ie,reseller model),and paid less attention to the upstream competition.Then,in the context of e-commerce platform selling,how do product suppliers/platform companies disclose product attribute(matching)information? How does competition from upstream suppliers affect disclosure decisions?At the same time,product suppliers/platforms can choose to provide marketing services to consumers,thereby stimulating the increase in market demand.However,under different pricing mechanisms,the impact mechanism of marketing services on demand is not consistent.Previous research on marketing effort mostly focused on the background of traditional supply chains,and paid less attention to the impact of the two factors,i.e.,suppliers' production costs and upstream competition intensity,on marketing service decisions.Further,they mostly assumed that marketing effort were either provided by suppliers or retailers.Howerver,in the context of e-commerce platform selling,both product suppliers and platform can choose to provide marketing effort.Therefore,how do companies under the e-commerce platform make marketing effort and pricing decisions? How do suppliers' production costs and the intensity of supplier competition affect marketing effort and pricing decisions?To answer the questions above,we use game theory to study information disclosure,marketing effort and pricing in the context of e-commerce platform selling.The main research contents and contributions are as follows:We examine the product information disclosure strategy in E-Commerce platforms,and compare two ways of information disclosure: “platform disclosure” and“supplier disclosure”.First,we consider a monopoly market with one platform and one supplier.The results show that the optimal information disclosure strategy depends on the relative importance of product(matching)attributes.Meanwhile,the supplier is more likely to disclose all product information.Second,we consider a duopoly market with one platform and two suppliers.In contrast with the monopoly market,we find that the platform prefers to disclose all product information.Meanwhile,under supplier disclosure,the optimal disclosure strategy depends on the relative value of product(matching)attributes.The article's theoretical findings have certain practical significance.For example,in reality,in the agency mode,the platform usually build the system framework,but the suppliers themselves are responsible for the design and presentation of shopping pages.We study two business models(i.e.,agency model and reseller model)in Ecommerce platforms,and explore the strategies of marketing effort and pricing under the two different models in a monopolistic setting,and analyze the effect of suppliers' marginal cost.We show that the equilibrium outcomes differ between the agency and reseller model.In specific,under the agency model,when the marginal cost is relatively low,the level of marketing effort,retail price and demand are all higher than under the reseller model,thus benefiting both the supplier and the platform.The results reverse when the marginal cost is sufficiently high.Under the reseller model,the implementation of demand-enhancing marketing activities shall be dedicated to the supplier.In addition,when the platform can decide to control the channel selection,she will always prefer agency selling contract regardless of which party to implement the marketing effort if marginal cost is in the middle range;otherwise,she always prefers the reseller model.This shows that in the contex of Internet selling,firms should weigh the decision-making preferences of marketing effort based on the production cost of the product.We consider the competitive relationship between upstream suppliers,construct a game-theoretic model with two competitive suppliers and one platform to explore the marketing effort and pricing strategies under the two aformentioned models,and analyze the effct of suppliers' competitive intensity.Under the agency model,the worsening of competition between suppliers would hinder the investment in marketing effort,no matter who provides marketing effort.When the competition between suppliers is weak,the platform prefers that suppliers offer marketing effort.By contrast,when the competition is strong,the platform prefers to provide marketing effort by itself.Under the reseller model,the worsening of competition encourages the investment in marketing effort,which occurs when the platform provides marketing effort.Furthermore,the intensity of competition has non-monotonic effect on suppliers' profits.Although suppliers and platforms have similar preferences over marketing effort in the both modes,the underlying mechanisms are different.From a practical point of view,the intensity of competition between suppliers will affect the decisionmaking preferences of firms' marketing effort,and the platform must pay attention to the effect of competition.In summary,my thesis explores the information disclosure strategy of product attributes(matching)under the e-commerce platform,and reveals in depth the impact mechanism of the supplier's product cost and market competition on the marketing effort in the e-commerce platform.The thesis reveals how the competition between suppliers can affect marketing effort,and provides new managerial insights for ecommerce platforms,and has important theoretical and practical value.