Decisions and Coordination of E-Commerce Supply Chain Considering Product Quality and Marketing Efforts under Different Power Structures

Abstract

With the rapid development of internet technology, consumers have increasingly higher requirements for product quality. High-quality products can win consumers’ trust. Enhancing both product quality and sales in e-commerce platform transactions has long been a focal point of research. To address this issue, this paper constructs Stackelberg game models under different power structures and compares their impacts on pricing decisions and profits within e-commerce supply chains. Numerical simulations are used to explore the optimal combination strategy for the interaction of product quality and marketing efforts in the e-commerce supply chain. The results show that: (1) Under a centralized decision-making model, product quality and marketing efforts reach their optimal values, maximizing benefits for the supply chain system. (2) Under different power structures, the relationship between the profits of the supplier and the e-commerce platform self-operator is closely linked to the cost coefficients of product quality and marketing efforts. (3) Through the mechanism of “cost-sharing + compensation contract”, the supplier can reduce wholesale price, and the e-commerce platform self-operator can subsidize a portion of the sales to the supplier, thereby maximizing the profits of both parties and achieving a win–win situation. The research in this paper aids suppliers in improving product quality and e-commerce platform self-operators in enhancing their marketing efforts, providing theoretical support for optimizing supply-chain decision making on e-commerce platforms.