Platform’s Store Brand, Manufacturer’s Selling Mode, and Third-Party Information
研究了在线平台在批发或佣金合同下是否引入自有品牌，以及第三方信息（如评价）如何影响这一决策，发现高佣金和高品质时平台会放弃自有品牌，信息准确性对平台利润的影响因合同类型而异。
National brand manufacturers sell their product s through online platforms under either a wholesale or a commission-based contract. To increase profits, platforms may introduce store brands, which creates competition with national brands. However, consumers are often uncertain about the quality of store brands, and third-party information–such as reviews and evaluations–can help mitigate this uncertainty. What remains unclear is whether manufacturers' selling modes affect platforms' incentives to introduce store brands and how third party information influences these decisions. To address these questions, we develop game-theoretical models in which the platform decides whether to introduce a store brand under wholesale or commission-based contracts. Our results show that the platform abandons the store brand when both its quality and the commission rate are high. Moreover, if the store brand's quality is high, inaccurate third-party information softens price competition between brands and benefits the platform. By contrast, accurate information is more likely to improve platform profit under wholesale contracts than under commission-based contracts when the store brand is of high quality. Finally, when the consumer base includes both sophisticated and naive buyers, the platform is more likely to abandon the store brand, and accurate information becomes less beneficial as the share of naive consumers increases.