When and How Should Cross-Border Platforms Manage Blockchain Technology in the Presence of Purchasing Agents?

Abstract

Copycat issues and unreliable purchasing agents have challenged cross-border consumption and hurt the brands and online platforms significantly. We explicate a setting in which a platform orders from a brand, then sells and competes with the purchasing agents in an overseas market. Worried about the copycat issues, consumers undertake risk when purchasing from both platforms and agents. The blockchain adoption may help release this uncertainty by purchasing from a platform. We show the values and impacts of this new technology on the platform, brand and consumers. It is interesting to observe that the platform does not always have incentive to adopt blockchain, even if it is costless. In the presence of blockchain, we show that the revenue sharing, two-part tariff and profit sharing contracts can achieve supply chain coordination, but the cost sharing contract fails to do so. In the extended models, we discuss what will happen when the brand decides domestic retail price and the platform links optional information nodes to blockchain.