Who Should Introduce an Offline Showroom? The Optimal Strat-Egy for An E-Commerce Supply Chain Considering Service Cost Ef-Fectiveness
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/1wrng614Keywords:
E-commerce supply chain, showroom introduction, showroom strategy, experience service, ser-vice cost effectivenessAbstract
This paper explores how an e-commerce supply chain consisting of a brand manufacturer and an online retailer determines the optimal showroom strategy. By considering the difference of ser-vice cost-effectiveness between supply chain members and the impacts of showroom on customer purchasing behaviors, two showroom strategies are investigated, namely BS strategy where the manufacturer introduces a showroom and OS strategy where the retailer introduces a showroom. The results show that the manufacturer and the retailer adjust optimal decisions according to the relative size of cost-effectiveness coefficients. No matter how the optimal decisions vary, introduc-ing showroom can always enhance the total demand. Besides, the BS strategy is optimal for sup-ply chain members only when the manufacturer has an obvious cost advantage. For the OS strat-egy, even if the retailer has no cost advantage and bears a relatively high cost-effectiveness coeffi-cient, it is still optimal for supply chain members than the BS strategy.
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