Manufacturer’s product line selling strategy and add-on policy in product sharing
研究了制造商在同时提供销售和租赁服务时，如何选择产品线（低质销售+高质租赁或反之）以及是否提供租赁产品的附加品，发现附加品总是被提供，且策略选择取决于附加品价值和质量差异程度。
During the sharing boom, product lines and add-ons are significant for manufacturers who have established sharing platforms to provide sharing and rental services. In this paper, we consider a manufacturer that provides two products of different quality in the rental channel (i.e., the B2C sharing platform) and the sales channel. We investigate the manufacturer’s product-line selling strategies: either the manufacturer sells low-quality products and rents high-quality products (i.e., the L H product line), or the manufacturer sells high-quality products and rents low-quality products (i.e., the H L product line). We also examine whether to offer the add-on for rental products. The results show that the manufacturer will always offer the add-on. When the add-on value and the degree of quality differentiation are low, the manufacturer will offer the add-on and choose the H L product line; otherwise, the manufacturer will offer the add-on and choose the L H product line. Furthermore, reducing the add-on cost will not always increase the manufacturer’s profit. However, as the add-on cost decreases, the manufacturer will be more likely to offer the add-on and choose the H L product line. Finally, we extend the main model in several ways and verify the robustness of the results.