Channel strategy and the management of fake reviews in a catering platform service supply chain

Abstract

With the burgeoning of the platform economy, the online-to-offline catering industry has developed rapidly. However, the industry faces various challenges, such as fierce channel competition and fake reviews. This paper investigates a Catering Platform Service Supply Chain (CPSSC) consisting of a restaurant (she) and an online service platform (he). The restaurant decides whether to join the platform or not. If yes, we further delve into the issue of the restaurant’s potential fake reviews and devise a platform supervision mechanism as a viable solution. The research findings first show that if the restaurant’s offline profit is below a threshold, she would be incentivized to join the platform when the commission rate is relatively low. Furthermore, this incentive would decrease when more offline consumers switch to the online channel. Secondly, the restaurant will set a higher online pricing ratio after joining the platform if its online review rating is above the industry average, and vice versa. Thirdly, if both firms focus on their short-term benefits while neglecting their corporate reputations, they would fall into the dilemma of boiling frogs in gradually heated water. To solve this dilemma, we establish an evolutionary game model to explore the long-term strategic interaction between the restaurant and platform while concurrently formulating a robust supervision mechanism. The results suggest that reinforcing consumers’ trust in the platform’s supervision and enhancing the supervision effectiveness can significantly benefit the entire CPSSC.