Strategic Introduction of the Blockchain Technology under Retailing Competition from New Entrants

Abstract

With the rapid development of blockchain technology, the new retail has diversified intelligent empowerment modes and achieved a leap change in the service system. As the competition in the retail industry becomes increasingly fierce, whether new entrants choose to introduce blockchain technology to improve their profits becomes the key to their development. This paper considers the system consisting of the incumbent retailer and the new entrant retailer, uses the game theory method to discuss their competition, considers the introduction cost of blockchain technology, and compares the two cases of the new entrant retailer not introducing blockchain technology and introducing blockchain technology. The results show that when the introduction of blockchain technology can fully make up for consumers’ concerns about the quality of new entrant retailers’ products and enhance consumers’ trust in their products, new entrant retailers will choose to introduce blockchain technology. And only when the introduction cost of blockchain technology is less than a certain threshold, it is beneficial for new entrant retailers to introduce blockchain technology. Finally, some numerical examples are given to illustrate the correctness of the above conclusions.