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Considering the network externalities of online selling, this paper builds three different online direct selling models: manufacturer direct selling (MN model), network platform direct selling (NN model) and retailer direct selling (RN model). The optimal advertising and pricing decision and corporate profits under each selling model are investigated.

Combining the characteristics of online direct selling, this paper formulates direct selling models that are dominated by different companies as Stackelberg game models. Numerical analyses are carried out, along with the comparison of the equilibrium solutions for each model.

The authors' research shows that increasing network externalities is conducive to the development of enterprises. The network platform's profit is the lowest in the RN model and the highest in the NN one. The comparison of manufacturers' profits between the MN model and the NN model primarily depends on consumers' sensitivities for sales price and advertising promotion level. The manufacturer does not benefit from the RN model due to the lowest efficiency.

Coupled with three different online direct selling models and detailed analyses of the optimal solutions, this study has enriched the theoretical foundation of online direct selling. Moreover, this study extends the research of network externalities to the field of e-commerce, revealing the network externalities' influence on the decision-making of the e-supply chain.

Previous studies have rarely integrated the financing modes of a capital-constrained manufacturer with the choices of online sales strategies. To address this gap, the authors study how a manufacturer selects optimal financing modes under different sales strategies in three dual-channel supply chains.

This paper considers three sales strategies, namely, combining a traditional retailer channel with one of the direct selling, reselling and agency selling channels, and two common financing modes, namely, bank financing and retailer financing. The authors obtain equilibrium outcomes of the manufacturer and traditional retailer and then provide the conditions for them to select optimal financing modes under three sales strategies.

The results indicate that the manufacturer’s financing decisions rely on the initial capital and interest rates, and the manufacturer selects retailer financing only if the initial capital is relatively larger. In terms of financing mode options, the retailer financing mode is more beneficial for the manufacturer under the three sales strategies. From the perspective of sales strategies, the direct selling model is more beneficial. In addition, the higher the consumer acceptance of the online channel, the more profits the manufacturer obtains.

This paper provides suggestions on how the capital-constrained manufacturer chooses financing modes and sales strategies.

This paper integrates the financing mode and different sales strategies to investigate the manufacturer’s optimal operational decisions. These sales strategies allow us to investigate the manufacturer’s optimal financing modes in the presence of both different financing modes and sales strategies.

The purpose of this study is to explore the interplay between the selection of selling formats of remanufactured products for a third-party remanufacturer (TPR) and the quality decision of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM).

This study considers a remanufacturing supply chain, where the OEM sells new products through a platform retailer, but the products remanufactured by the TPR can be sold via a direct or indirect channel. The authors model a Stackelberg game and explore the optimal quality decision of the OEM and selling format choice of the TPR.

The OEM's optimal decision depends mainly on consumers' discounted utility coefficient and cost-scale factor of remanufactured products. A higher consumers' valuation of the remanufactured product will not result in a higher retail price, but may lead to an increase in new product's sales. Given the cost-scale factor, the TPR prefers to sell directly no matter what the value of consumers' discounted utility coefficient is. An all-win situation is achieved with selling directly when consumers' discounted utility coefficient is sufficiently large.

These results provide some support to the operational strategies of the OEM and TPR.

This study firstly endogenizes the quality decision and combines the selling format selection of the TPR and the quality decision of the OEM to explore the interplay between these two important decisions.

The paper attempts to discuss the optimal pricing decisions under the decentralized and centralized decision and analyze the influence of online reviews and in-sale service on dual-channel supply chain. Finally, the authors design a two-part tariff coordination mechanism.

To deal with this pricing conflict problems of dual-channel supply chain consisting of dominant manufacturer and a retailer, considering the fact that online reviews and in-sale service are important factors on consumers’ purchase decisions, the authors establish some basic models and exploit them to discuss the optimal pricing decisions under the decentralized and centralized decision and analyze the influence of online reviews and in-sale service on dual-channel supply chain. Finally, the authors design a profit-sharing coordination mechanism.

The results show that the optimal online direct selling price is positively correlated with product perceived quality obtained from online reviews and negatively correlated with the in-sale service. The traditional retail price is positively correlated with the in-sale service and weakly correlated with online reviews. For the manufacturer and retailer, whether decentralized decision or coordination contract, their profits increase with the increase of the in-sale service in a certain range and quality perceived from spontaneous online reviews. Online reviews and in-sale service are important factors on consumers’ purchase decisions. Positive in-sale services and online reviews can provide consumers with a better shopping experience, thereby promoting their enthusiasm for shopping and improving their quality of life. The two-part tariff coordination mechanism improves the profits of the manufacturer and the traditional retailer, respectively, through the transfer fee.

The proposed approach can well analyze the channel conflicts and pricing problems between retailers and manufacturers with respect to product offline price and online price. The analysis and results can inform decision-making for manufacturers and retailers.

This paper aims to identify the conditions under which encroachment is a viable strategy for a manufacturer to gain competitive advantage and achieve higher profitability in the presence of the store-brand.

This paper proposes game-theoretic models in a two-echelon supply chain consisting of a manufacturer (him) and a retailer (her), in which he distributes his national brand through the retailer, and endogenously determines whether to establish a new direct sales channel to sell the national brand when the retailer introduces her store-brand.

Analytical results show that the bar for the manufacturer to encroach the end market in the presence of the store-brand is always higher than that for him to encroach in the absence of the store-brand. Although incurring channel competition, encroaching with the national brand in the presence of the retailer's store-brand can lead to either a win-lose or win-win result for the manufacturer and the retailer. Numerical studies claim that, higher brand substitution can push down the retailer's enthusiasm to introduce her new brand. Counterintuitively, when the retailer introduces her store-brand, higher brand substitution does not necessarily push up the manufacturer's enthusiasm to respond with national-brand encroachment. When consumer preferences for the two brands are heterogeneous, a higher consumer preference for the retailer's store-brand results in the retailer's higher enthusiasm to introduce her store-brand and the manufacturer's lower enthusiasm to encroach with his national brand.

This study can help researchers to better understand the retailer's store-brand introduction, manufacturer encroachment and their interaction theoretically, and further provide decision support for enterprises to choose brand and channel strategies in practice.

Motivated by the real-world practice of the thriving e-commerce, manufacturers are transcending traditional boundaries of merely producing and selling directly by implementing encroachment. Concurrently, supply chain (SC) members who overlook the corporate social responsibility (CSR) sharing will be left behind, which is closely linked to their profits. This paper aims to investigate a better way to share CSR under the scenarios of manufacturer encroachment and no-encroachment.

This paper constructs game-theoretic models in a SC consisting of a manufacturer (M) and a retailer (R), where the manufacturer can sell products by retailing, and may sell directly by implicating encroachment. The manufacturer and retailer jointly consider whether to share CSR and the proportion of it by taking consumer surplus into account. Furthermore, equilibriums for each model are derived using backward induction. Then, the authors analyse the impact of CSR sharing proportion and compare the equilibrium outcomes under different scenarios. Finally, the numerical analyses are presented to verify the results.

Several interesting results are found in this paper. First, the retailer shares more CSR can benefit SC members and social welfare when the manufacturer does not implement encroachment. However, the results may change which is decided by the unit cost of encroachment when the manufacturer does so. Second, the proportion of CSR shared by manufacturer and the unit cost of encroachment has an interactive impact on equilibrium outcomes. Finally, both manufacturer encroachment and SC members share CSR may be the best for the perspective of SC members and consumers.

Based on the analytical results, this paper provides novel managerial implications to assist manufacturer and retailer in determining the optimal strategies for CSR sharing and encroachment. Furthermore, the appropriate proportion of CSR shared by manufacturer and the unit cost of encroachment may let manufacturer, retailer and consumer surplus achieve a win-win-win situation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to explore the strategy of CSR sharing under the scenarios of manufacturer encroachment and no-encroachment.

In this paper, the authors study the entry and outsourcing strategies of manufacturer while considering the brand spillover effect resulting from outsourcing. The supply chain comprises two manufacturers: one being the entrant with a strong brand, and the other as the incumbent with a weak brand. The entrant decides whether and how to enter the market.

Stackelberg game is applied to study the optimal strategies for the manufacturers. This paper conducts a comparative analysis on four situations, yielding conclusions and managerial insights.

The results show that, for the entrant, there is no need to worry about the brand spillover effect in the outsourcing process, which is very interesting and counterintuitive. To get further, the authors find the reason: The spillover effect causes the entrant’s equilibrium retail price to grow faster than the wholesale price. They also prove that a stronger brand effect empowers the entrant to challenge industry barriers, while the impact of the brand spillover effect is the opposite. For the incumbent who acts as the weak party in this issue, it is demonstrated that the optimal choice is to continue selling when facing the encroachment and outsourcing call from the entrant.

Differing from previous studies, the authors notice the brand spillover effect caused by outsourcing when studying company’s entry strategy. They further divide the brand effect into two parts, one of which does not exhibit a spillover.

This study aims to examine individual-specific market orientation as an innovative approach and its relationship with marketing skills among artisan entrepreneurs in India.

The study adopted an in-depth interview to explore variables, a questionnaire survey to understand their latent dimensions through exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to test the relationship between constructs under study.

The interview result indicates that 20 variables explain factors affecting individual-specific market orientation with four latent dimensions: customer orientation, competitor orientation, external coordination orientation and personal selling orientation. There is a significant and positive relationship between customer orientation and personal selling orientation with the marketing skills of artisan entrepreneurs in India.

The study is confined to three southern states of India and weaving villages known for their endemic product specifications.

The study found significance in orienting artisan entrepreneurs of developing countries and equipping them with desired skills to meet the changing dynamics of the market and meet their livelihood needs. The study further supports policymaking in strengthening the capability of artisans to enter the market without mediators.

The model provides insight into other unorganized sectors to formulate innovative approaches to strengthen marketing skills and entrepreneurial ability.

As an exploratory study, examining individual-level market orientation as an innovative approach and their relationship with marketing skills among artisan entrepreneurs was unexplored in several unorganized sectors, including handlooms.

This paper examines whether farmers' knowledge of the minimum support prices (MSPs) affects farm-gate prices. MSP is the minimum guaranteed price for agricultural commodities announced by the Government of India for 24 commodities. Most farmers in India prefer to sell their produce at the farm-gate due to a small marketable surplus and hence do not directly benefit from MSP. The authors test the common argument in the political discourse that if farmers have knowledge of MSP, then they can bargain with traders during the farm-gate transaction and demand a better price close to MSP.

The authors use matching methods to examine the impact of knowledge of MSP on farm-gate prices.

Using nationally representative data, the authors show that there is no empirical evidence that the knowledge of MSP of the crops leads to higher bargaining power and better farm-gate prices.

Price information (MSP in this case) alone cannot improve the bargaining power of farmers and result in a better price realization. As a safety net, MSP fails in the absence of procurement of products by the government. This also raises the question of the equitability of the price support system in India and calls for a rethink of the MSP policy.

This study is the first of its kind to examine the anchoring effect of knowledge of MSP on farm-gate prices using a nationally representative dataset.

The case study has several objectives: to gauge the evaluation of the direct-to-consumer industry in the economy of India, to analyse the competition of the brands, to ascertain the evolution of smaller direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands on the purchasing capacity of consumers, to analyse challenges in branding in Tier 2 and 3 cities and to evaluate the strategic branding decisions of Mamaearth.

During her pregnancy, Ghazal Alagh and her husband Varun Alagh, the co-founders of Mamaearth, were looking for some good and natural products for their baby’s skincare. However, she could not find products that were 100% safe. Hence, as a concerned mother, she started using a few hands-on home remedies for her baby, which were 100% organic, and then the idea clicked to her to start a baby care brand named Mamaearth, which later also included personal care products. The company started as a DTC/internet-first brand in 2016, which only used to sell products online without any intermediaries when it was still trying to make its way in the market and was aware of the stiff competition by giants such as Hindustan Unilever and Proctor & Gamble, who were ruling the market for decades. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the market saw a shift in consumer buying patterns. There was greater use of e-commerce touch points for shopping, as various digital platforms such as the official site of products, social media and mobile platforms were used by consumers during the pandemic, leading to digitalization in buying and digitalization of consumer shopping journey. These technology platforms were expected to play a substantial role in reaching and creating consumer awareness, transaction and retention post-COVID according to reports by Deloitte 2020. Moreover, such a shift in behaviour amidst the COVID-19 pandemic shot up sales of this DTC brand and made itself the big shot it is today, where they were looking to get into an initial public offering in just seven years of its launch. They re-evaluated their strategy, which helped them become the biggest brand in no time.

This case study is suitable for Doctor of Philosophy students.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.