| The Customer to Manufactory(C2M)model is becoming a new idea for economic development and a new tool for industrial upgrading.Ecommerce platforms are playing an increasingly important role in this process by virtue of big data and technological resources.Under the C2 M model of an independent brand of the OBM,e-commerce platforms rely on massive consumer data to help OBMs cultivate their own brand,provide consultation and suggestions for product development,and produce C2 M products that better meet consumer needs.In the second C2 M mode,ecommerce platforms use their own data and technical resources to deeply understand consumers’ demands and reversely customize more personalized and high-quality C2 M products with private labels.In the third C2 M mode,brand owners and e-commerce platforms jointly carry out customization and launch new C2 M products by virtue of the rich capabilities and data resources of e-commerce platforms.Starting from the above problems,this paper takes the perspective of the online retail C2 M supply chain,constructs a supply chain model composed of the brand owner,e-commerce platform,and OBM,and studies the optimal pricing and channel selection strategy of the supply chain under three different C2 M modes of the e-commerce platform.The research shows that,first of all,the research shows that,different from traditional experience,the brand owner does not always choose marketplace channel when the platform commission rate is low,but prefers marketplace channel when both the platform commission and the service efficiency are high.For the e-commerce platform,the increase of service efficiency results in that the profit of reselling channel is greater than that of the marketplace channel when the commission rate is high.Secondly,in the C2 M mode of e-commerce private brand,in the marketplace channel,the pricing of standard products of brands and e-commerce platform private-brand products depends on the cost difference between the two products and the relative premium brought by C2 M products to consumers,but has nothing to do with the proportion of consumers with C2 M product preference.Under the reselling channel,the pricing of both products is jointly influenced by the proportion of consumers with C2 M product preference and product costs.When the proportion of consumers with C2 M product preference is small,the platform commission rate and the production cost of standard products are moderate,both the brand owner and the e-commerce platform prefer the marketplace channel.However,when the proportion of consumers with C2 M product preference is large,the platform commission rate is high and the cost advantage of standard products is high,both of them prefer the reselling channel.Thirdly,in the C2 M mode of joint customization with brand owners,the channel choices of the brand owner and the e-commerce platform are determined by the service efficiency of the e-commerce platform,commission rate,and the degree of product competition.For the brand owner selling standard products,when the commission rate is high or the platform service efficiency is high,reselling channel is a better choice.When the service efficiency of the platform is high or the commission rate is low,the ecommerce platform tends to choose the reselling channel,too.In addition,only when the service efficiency of the e-commerce platform is low and the platform fee rate is low,the brands of both sides will choose to carry out joint customization with the e-commerce platform.The above research provides a reference for decision-making on optimal pricing and channel selection of e-commerce platforms,brand owners,and OBMs with independent brands in reality,as well as providing guidance for participants in the supply chain on how to optimize their own profits and overall benefits of the supply chain. |
