Platform supply chain pricing and financing: Who benefits from e-commerce consumer credit?

Abstract

E-commerce (EC) consumer credit has stimulated consumption vitality which fuels regional economic growth. Platforms that provide credit services can adjust their charge, however, the impact of such behavior on all participants remains unexplored. Thus, we construct a game model for the platform supply chain (PSC) consisting of third-party seller—EC platform—strategic consumers, to analyze the pricing strategies and examine who ultimately benefits from the credit. We find the credit increases the product price but not necessarily the platform charge. Whether the participants can benefit from the credit is contingent upon parameter conditions. For the transaction of mid-to low-end products, the seller, the consumers and the whole PSC can profit from the credit, but it is ambiguous for the platform. When the dishonesty aversion coefficient of consumers is high, the platform has more incentives to provide credit; for the seller and the consumers, they are more willing to participate in credit services when this coefficient is moderate. Social welfare is higher for the consumers with higher dishonesty aversion. Our extensive analyses show that, for one thing, the heterogeneity in dishonesty aversion can expand the profit range of consumer credit for both the consumers and the seller, nevertheless, it weakens the platform's motivation to supply credit; for another, the diversity of consumer payments has a non-monotonic effect on the utilities or profits of participants, but a lower credit payment ratio discourages the credit supply for low-end product transactions, while the seller and the consumers can benefit from mid-to low-end product transactions due to payment diversity.