Information Sharing and Financing Services on Online Retailing Platforms
构建博弈模型研究在线零售平台的信息共享与融资服务之间的相互影响，发现两者存在错位，可通过收取信息固定费用解决，为平台设计综合服务提供指导。
Online marketplaces such as Amazon and Tmall have been expanding services to boost the growth of their ecosystems. One is information service on sharing privately gathered massive consumer data that is unavailable to their sellers, and the other is financing service, e.g., Amazon Lending and Ant Financial, aiming to provide accessible and affordable financial support for small and medium-sized sellers. This paper develops a game-theoretical model to examine the interplay between information sharing and financing services on a retail platform, particularly when sellers are financially constrained. The results show that while the information-sharing service always makes the platform less likely to provide an attractive financing service, the financing service also makes the information-sharing service less likely to be provided under certain conditions. These conditions depend on the structure of capital market and the seller’s initial working capital. We find that such misalignment between these two services can be resolved by charging a fixed payment for the information service, leading to improved operational efficiency and social welfare. We finally extend our analytical results and managerial insights to general settings, demonstrating the robustness of our findings. Our findings could provide useful guidance for platform practitioners in designing integrated information-sharing and financing services.