关键词: 生鲜农产品, 电商平台, 网络外部性, 渠道选择, 契约协调

Abstract: In recent years, some e-commerce platforms such as Taobao.com, JD.com and Amazon.com are rapidly developing, and consumers can obtain additional network externality from shopping online due to visual online sales, which prompts consumers to gradually shift from offline to online. In this context, if firms selling fresh agricultural products decide whether to enter e-commerce platforms, they need to consider not only increased demand from online sales but also the channel competition brought by operating online channel. Moreover, given that fresh agricultural products are perishable and online arrival time is relatively long, consumers may obtain a relatively low-quality fresh agricultural products from online shopping, which may reduce consumers’ willingness to buy and product evaluation. Therefore, firms selling fresh agricultural products need to carefully decide whether to enter e-commerce platforms as third-party sellers. To address channel selection problems faced by these firms, this paper considers a firm selling a fresh agricultural product offline and an e-commerce platform dominating the e-commerce market. According to the firm’s choice of whether entering the platform, weanalyze two cases, i.e. not entering the platform (NP) and entering the platform (EP). We develop several theoretical models to investigate optimal fresh agricultural product pricing and channel selection strategies. Some main insights are presented as follows. The results show that the firm should enter the platform if the annual service fee is relatively low; otherwise, the firm should not enter the platform. Moreover, as consumers’ sensitivity to network externality increases, the firm is more likely to enter the platform. In the extension, we consider a decentralized supply chain with a supplier and a retailer, and find that the retailer is more reluctant to enter the platform. In addition, this paper designs a revenue sharing contract to coordinate the supply chain, and finds that the retailer in the context of coordinated supply chain is more likely to enter the platform.

Key words: fresh agricultural Products, e-commerce platform, network externality, channel choice, contract coordination