Information-sharing strategy in a two-stage hybrid platform under co-opetition background.

The hybrid platform is emerging into online retailing market based on reselling and direct selling, forming the dual-channel model composed of third-party operated and platform self-operated channels. To achieve structural matching between channels, this study studies the pricing strategies of suppliers as well as platform under four information-sharing situations: non-sharing information (NS), complete sharing information (CS), sharing information only with supplier of self-operated channel (SS), sharing information only with supplier of third-party operated channel (ST), and derive the equilibrium outcomes. The conclusions show that the retailing price in NS is only affected by levels of competition and transaction fees, while sharing information can raise the retailing price of both channels. Second, the information shared to self-operated supplier can intense competition and bring higher wholesale price, while information not shared to self-operated supplier can enhance co-operation and bring lower wholesale price. Moreover, the self-operated supplier is more inclined to enjoy market information, the third-party supplier prefers to no information shared to self-operated supplier at lower information-sharing level, but the third-party supplier prefers to SS at higher information-sharing level. For equilibrium results, the NS is the equilibrium information-sharing strategy when the information value is high; when the information value is moderate, the equilibrium strategy is ST under small or high transaction fee, and the equilibrium decision is CS under modest transaction fee; when the information value is small, the equilibrium strategy is CS under small or high transaction fee, while the equilibrium decision is ST under modest transaction fee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Expert Systems with Applications is the property of Pergamon Press - An Imprint of Elsevier Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)