Operational Strategies For The E-Commerce Platform And The Manufacturer Considering The Store Brand Introduction

In the past few decades,store brands(SBs)have become increasingly prevalent and have become a crucial element for retailers to gain a competitive advantage.In confronting with the ceaseless development of online retail and the intensification of market competition,numerous e-commerce platforms also keenly broadened their SB business.The introduction of SB has reshaped the relationship between e-commerce platforms and manufacturers,making them evolve from an initial cooperative association to a co-opetitive one.Meanwhile,the SB encroachment has engendered an array of new operational problems such as the products’ pricing timing and positioning,platform enablement selection,and the decision to share or disclose information.Accordingly,e-commerce platforms and manufacturers will also reexamine their existing operational strategies,and the adjustment of operational strategies has emerged as an exigent concern for them.Thus,focusing on the e-commerce platform’s SB,the thesis develops a multi-stage dynamic game theoretic model based on specific business practices,and in-depth examines the interaction between the SB introduction and firms’ operational strategies.This thesis identifies the market conditions of the SB encroachment and provides managerial implications for the adjustment of operational strategies of firms.The main research content and results are as follows:(1)This thesis studies the SB introduction in the e-commerce platform under different pricing sequences.Given that both the e-commerce platform and the agency selling mode manufacturer possess the ability to predetermine the retail prices of products,this thesis discusses the SB introduction strategy under the two pricing sequences,as well as analyzes each firm’s preference for pricing sequences.The study reveals that,under different pricing timing scenarios,the e-commerce platform exhibits three divergent behaviors regarding the SB introduction,in which the SB threat of encroachment yields negligible sales,but may be employed as a credible threat to secure a wholesale price advantage.Consequently,as long as the fixed cost and quality disadvantage of SB are not significant,the e-commerce platform should introduce an SB.Compared with the agency selling mode manufacturer prior pricing scenario,the SB threat of introduction range is wider under e-commerce platform prior pricing.When the e-commerce platform introduces her SB,the agency selling mode manufacturer prefers the first-mover advantage,while the e-commerce platform and reselling mode manufacturer may entail the second-mover advantage.As the fixed cost of SB introduction escalate,the manufacturer’s preference for agency selling mode decreases.(2)This thesis examines the SB introduction and the platform-enablement selection dilemma.Under both reselling mode and agency selling mode,multi-stage dynamic game models are separately constructed to analyze the interactive impact between platform enablement and SB introduction.Furthermore,the research compared the differences in the regions of SB introduction under different sales modes and the sales mode preferences of the two parties.The results show that the e-commerce platform should introduce an SB as long as the production cost parameter and its quality disadvantage are not sufficiently pronounced,and the e-commerce platform’s willingness to introduce an SB dwindles in product substitution rate and agency fee.In addition,platform enablement is a dominant strategy for the e-commerce platform,and can drive the SB encroachment.Interestingly,the SB encroachment is not only beneficial to the e-commerce platform but even reaches a win-win interval.The main reason is the competition inhibition and enablement enhancement effect in reselling mode,while the transfer incentive and enablement enhancement effect in agency selling mode.Regional differences in the introduction of SB under reselling mode and agency selling mode hinge on product substitution rate and agency fee.Regardless of whether the SB is introduced,the ecommerce platform and the manufacturer exhibit consistent sales mode preferences,with platform enablement strengthening their preference for the agency selling mode.(3)This study examines the interaction between demand information sharing and the SB introduction.Considering the e-commerce platform may share demand information and introduce her SB,this thesis develops a multi-stage dynamic game model based on asymmetric demand information to explore the impact of SB introduction on the demand information sharing strategy.This thesis shows that the e-commerce platform should dynamically adjust the SB encroachment strategy according to the fluctuation of market demand and the fixed cost of the SB introduction,that is partial encroachment.The SB encroachment not only lowers the average wholesale price in the reselling channel but also mitigates the double marginalization effect of information sharing.The equilibrium demand information sharing strategy is quite different under different selling modes.Specifically,when the fixed cost of the SB introduction is too high or too low,the e-commerce platform tends to retain information due to the influence of double marginal effect in the reselling mode,while the e-commerce platform prefers to share information due to the existence of revenue sharing mechanism in the agency selling mode.When the fixed cost of the SB introduction is medium and the product substitution rate is large,the brand competition effect will cause the demand information sharing preference of the e-commerce platform to be reversed.Demand information sharing may not only facilitate the introduction of SB,but may also deter the SB intrusion into the market.(4)This work develops a random demand model and co-opetitive game model to examine the interaction between preference disclosure and the SB introduction.Considering that consumers are uncertain about their own preferences and both the e-commerce platform and the manufacturer know their true preferences and can choose whether to disclose consumers’ preferences,this thesis examines how the SB introduction affects the two parties’ disclosure strategies.This thesis demonstrates that when the coefficient of production cost is relatively high,disclosing consumers’ preferences can enlarge the demand for both national brand and SB.Additionally,the sale prices increase in the informative degree,and the sale prices rise even more under reselling mode,while the market share of SB decreases.When the SB is not introduced,the e-commerce platform and the manufacturer have identical interests in preference information disclosure under the reselling mode,while they may have misaligned interests under the agency selling mode.Once the SB is introduced,their incentives to disclose consumers’ preferences may not coincide under any selling modes.The SB encroachment induces the manufacturer to disclose more information and leads to consumers being more informed about their genuine preferences,but disclosing consumers’ preferences is not necessarily beneficial to consumers.Moreover,the manufacturer can deter the SB’s entry through the information disclosure strategy,and the e-commerce platform is not always inclined to introduce a high-quality SB.