Selling Formats Choice in the Presence of Third‐Party Resellers: The Roles of Platform Empowerment
研究制造商通过平台和第三方转售商分销产品时，平台赋能如何影响制造商与平台之间的转售或代理销售模式选择，发现高佣金和中等赋能成本下三方偏好代理模式，低佣金和低成本下偏好转售模式。
ABSTRACT Recent years have seen online retail platforms engage in empowerment to boost demand for both their own channels and those of third‐party sellers. Under such a context, this paper investigates the selling formats choice problem within a distribution channel where a manufacturer distributes products through both a platform and a third‐party reseller, who subsequently sells to consumers via the platform. Our study examines two hybrid selling modes that differ in the selling relationship between the manufacturer and the platform: a manufacturer–platform reselling format, in which the platform purchases products from the manufacturer and resells them to consumers, and a manufacturer–platform agency selling format, in which the manufacturer sells directly to consumers via the platform under a commission contract. In both modes, a third‐party reseller sells to consumers through the platform and pays a commission. This phenomenon cannot be fully explained by existing theory on traditional one‐to‐one e‐commerce supply chains. To address this gap, we develop a game‐theoretic model to analyze equilibrium selling formats choices, wholesale prices, empowerment levels, and sales quantity decisions. Furthermore, we derive several noteworthy findings. For instance, three firms prefer a manufacturer–platform agency selling format under a high commission rate and a moderate cost of empowerment. Conversely, three firms prefer a manufacturer–platform reselling format under a low commission rate and cost of empowerment. These findings stand in contrast to the cases where the absence of platforms empowerment or platforms only empower themselves. Moreover, under a manufacturer–platform reselling format, our results demonstrate that the platform would empower the third‐party reseller if and only if cost of empowerment is high. For a particular product category, our study offers valuable insights for managers grappling with selling formats choices in the presence of third‐party resellers when the platform exerts empowerment.