Abstract

The sharing economy represents an emerging consumption mode in which the right to utilize products is obtained via transactions instead of conventional ownership exchange. Thus, the idle period of a product during its life cycle can be minimized to promote environmental protection. This study focuses on the business-to-consumers (B2C) business sharing model, in which products are possessed by a firm and there are general and green consumers in the market, and it investigates the optimal operation strategy for a firm in consideration of both self-operated and third-party sharing platforms. The results show that when both general and green consumers are in the market, adopting a sharing economy business model will dramatically elevate a firm's profits. Moreover, when there are more green consumers than general consumers in the market, firms should adopt a compound operation strategy with both self-operated and third-party platforms. Since consumers would rather obtain a product by sharing to lower product usage, firms can determine whether to adopt the sharing economy business model by determining market demand for a product.

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