Manufacturer encroachment with competing dual-purpose online retail platforms

Abstract

This study investigates the manufacturer encroachment strategy within a supply chain composed of a manufacturer and multiple competing dual-purpose online retail platforms who value profit and consumer surplus. We examine the strategic interactions among manufacturer encroachment, platform dual-purpose concern, and retail competition. Some interesting results are obtained. First, with a single platform, the manufacturer's encroachment incentive exhibits a non-monotonic relationship with respect to the platforms' concern of consumer surplus. However, with multiple competing platforms, the increased concern of consumer surplus and retail competition intensity dampen the manufacturer's encroachment incentive. Second, manufacturer encroachment benefits platforms (supply chain) only when the platform's concern of consumer surplus is low and commission fee is moderate (low enough). Moreover, the increased retail competition intensity and the platform's concern of consumer surplus further aggravate the detrimental effect of manufacturer encroachment on the platforms and supply chain. Third, the dual-purpose concern of the platforms may hurt consumer surplus, whereas the increased retail competition intensity may contrarily alleviate this adverse effect to some extent. Finally, the profits for the platform and supply chain and consumer surplus are non-monotonic with respect to the platform's concern of consumer surplus.