摘要
The development of online sales provides more options for companies to broaden their markets. Facing the rapid-developed online market, how to build their own online channels is the primary problem faced by many companies. At the same time, the development of online sales has led to the emergence of various third-party e-commerce platforms, which provides many options for different enterprises on their road to e-commerce. More and more companies are choosing to enter third-party e-commerce platforms to expand their online marketplace business, which has prompted some e-commerce platforms to continuously adjust their business. Some self-operated e-commerce platforms constantly attract third-party sellers, which makes them shift from self-operated platforms to hybrid platforms. In order to cater to different merchants, these e-commerce platforms provide merchants with a variety of entry modes to choose from. The choice of merchant presence mode directly affects the optimal decision making of each participant, and the combination of different presence modes can also affect the decision mentioned above. Therefore, we should explore the decision making of participants under different combinations of presence modes in hybrid e-commerce platforms. This paper draws on the operational reality of hybrid e-commerce platforms, and takes the FBP (Fulfilled By POP, i. e., merchants put their products into the warehouse of the e-commerce platform after entry in the platform, and merchants are responsible for product sales while the platform is responsible for product shipment and after-sales) entry mode and SOP (Sale On POP, i. e., the e-commerce platform only provides a sales platform, and merchants operate, ship, and sell independently) entry mode as references. The competition between merchants and e-commerce platform is used as a reference to build the competition models of online channels under the self-operated or FBP, self-operated+FBP, and self-operated+FBP+SOP modes. By constructing a utility function in which both price and service affect consumers′ choices, game theory and optimization methods are combined to determine the optimal decisions of online channel participants under different entry modes. The focus of this study is to provide a decision reference for hybrid e-commerce platforms and different entry modes merchants by comparing the differences in participants′ decisions under different combinations of entry modes. According to the research arrangement, the first part discusses the problem of making optimal decisions of participants when only the platform′s own product or FBP merchant′s product exist. The e-commerce platform can achieve optimality only when consumers attach little importance to services, while FBP merchant always achieves optimality based on the platform′s decisions, and the importance consumers attach to services enhances the decisions of each participant. The second part discusses the problem of making optimal decisions of participants when the platform′s own product and the FBP merchant′s product exist simultaneously. In this case, consumers directly choose between the e-commerce platform′s product and the FBP merchant′s product, forming direct competition between the two products. The results of the study in this case are similar to those in Part I. The third part of the study goes further and discusses the optimal decision making of participants when there is competition between the platform′s own product, the FBP merchant′s product and the SOP merchant′s product. The FBP merchant can always make optimal decisions based on platform decisions, and SOP merchant can only achieve optimality when consumers′ preference for it is moderate. The numeric analysis found that the platform can achieve optimality under certain conditions. In summary, regardless of the competition modes, FBP merchant who leaves its service to the e-commerce platform always achieve optimal decisions based on the platform′s decisions, while the realization of optimal revenue for both the platform and the merchant who provides its own service is affected by numerous factors. The price, service, demand, and revenue of each decision maker are by and large decreased with the increase in the number of participants for similar products in the competition mode. The increase in the number of participants in the online market for similar competing products will increase the total demand for the online market, even though it will make the overall service level of the market lower. In addition, both the platform and the FBP merchant can obtain more revenue than other modes in the self-operated or FBP model, but there is no dominant mode choice for the online market as a whole. Nonetheless, the self-operated+FBP+SOP mode certainly cannot be the optimal choice for the online market. ? 2024, Zhejiang University.
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