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This article explores a particular on-demand fabrication unit, the microfactory (MF). It identifies and contrasts several MFs and proposes a taxonomy. This research also explores online manufacturing platforms (OMP) that complement certain MFs.

This research implements a multiple case study (71 cases in 21 countries), triangulating data available on the web with interviews, virtual/physical tours and experiential research.

The results suggest that automation and openness are the main dimensions that differentiate the MFs. Using these dimensions, a taxonomy of MFs is created. MFs with relatively low automation and high openness tend to be innovation-driven microfactories (IDMFs). MFs with high automation and low openness levels tend to be customization-driven microfactories (CDMFs). And MFs with relatively low automation and low openness tend to be classic machine shops (MSs). There are two types of OMP: closed (COMPs) and multisided (MOMPs). MOMPs can be low-end or high-end.

In a world where online platforms are becoming central to the reinvention of manufacturing, multisided online platforms and small fabricators will become strongly symbiotic.

This paper offers a clearer conceptualization of MFs and OMPs, which may help to better understand the reality of local on-demand fabrication. Moreover, it explores a new type of experiential research, which tries to describe and interpret firms through transactional activities. Many details of a firm that are difficult to capture via interviews and netnography can be revealed this way.

This paper aims to analyze the main challenges and critical success factors (CSFs) in managing multi-sided platforms (MSP) in Brazil, as well as to understand the differences between this management model and traditional companies.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with experienced professionals in the field, focusing on challenges, CSFs and difficulties in managing MSP businesses. The data were analyzed using a mixed-method approach, involving content analysis for qualitative data and grey relational analysis and sensitivity analysis for quantitative data.

The experts identified eight CSFs, seven key differences between traditional businesses and MSPs, and five technology-related challenges in managing MSPs. They assessed the main difficulties reported in the literature and ranked them, with the most critical challenges being competition with companies adopting MSP models in the same sector (product/service niche) and the necessity for ongoing process adjustments to accommodate scalability.

This study enhances understanding of CSF, disparities between traditional and MSPs and technology-related challenges in this management model. The results can assist managers in emerging nations in enhancing the performance of MSP operations and can be a resource for researchers studying various contexts and creating company guidelines.

The paper aims to clarify the effects of brand differentiation on the platform's formulation of channel strategy and help the online platform formulate the optimal channel strategy, which involves selecting a proper selling mode for each brand.

The paper develops a multistage game model consisting of one online platform and two competing manufacturers with differentiated brands and examines the effects of brand differentiation on these three channel members' profits under each candidate channel strategy.

The results show that the platform prefers to offer the reselling mode for both brands when the brand differentiation is low, and this preference will be enhanced by the decrease in order fulfilment cost. By contrast, when the brand differentiation is high, it will offer the reselling mode for the premium brand but the marketplace service for the economy brand if the order fulfilment cost is not high; or the marketplace mode will be offered to both brands if this cost is high.

This study assumes that the order fulfilment costs of platform and manufacturer are fixed and symmetric. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to consider asymmetric costs of order fulfilment.

The paper guides the online platform to formulate the optimal channel strategy for differentiated brands and provides managerial insights for differentiated brands entering online markets.

This paper explores platforms' optimal channel strategy by jointly considering the effects of brand differentiation and investigates the impacts of brand differentiation on the optimal decision making under four candidate options. Moreover, this paper has been extended to examine the case when the manufacturers' production costs cannot be neglected.

This paper considers a supply chain with a manufacturer (she) selling through an online retail platform (he) and studies the channel structure choices of two firms when investing in advertising.

The authors assume that the platform provides the manufacturer with an agency and/or reselling channel; thus, there are three possible channel structures: agency channel, reselling channel and dual channel. By developing a game-theoretic model, the authors investigate the channel structure choices of two firms when advertising separately, simultaneously and cooperatively and analyze the optimal combination strategy of channel structure and advertising scheme for both firms.

When the advertising efforts of the two firms are independent of each other, the equilibrium results show that different advertising schemes lead to different channel choices. For the manufacturer, it is optimal to choose the dual channel structure and adopt the advertising scheme that both subsidizes platform advertising and advertises on her own. For the platform, this combination is also optimal at a high commission rate; otherwise, the advertising scheme in which both firms advertise simultaneously is optimal and he is better off switching from the dual channel structure to the reselling channel structure as interchannel substitution intensity increases. The above results still hold for complementary advertising efforts and asymmetric marginal advertising costs, while in the case of substitutable advertising efforts, one firm may ride on another firm's advertising efforts, leading to different strategic combinations.

This paper not only provides useful guidance for manufacturers and platforms in channel selection and advertising strategy, but also theoretically enriches the literature on manufacturer encroachment.

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 purpose of this research was to study the impacts of adoption of additive manufacturing (AM) for spare parts procurement, specifically in the context of supply chain resilience (SCR) especially regarding efficient spare parts inventory management. Furthermore, key narratives in the adoption of AM toward better SCR are explored.

In-depth interviews with semi-structured open-ended questionnaire were conducted to collect primary qualitative data from 24 supply chain management (SCM) experts. Respondents consisted of experts across various industries. The data were analyzed by thematic content analysis method.

The results indicated that AM could be a suitable tool to reduce dependence on original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for spare parts procurement. Data analysis also revealed that AM adoption might lead to significant cost and lead time reduction. Designs protected as intellectual properties (IP), substantive post-processing requirements and material compatibility were revealed to be barriers in adoption.

The impacts of utilizing AM for procurement of spare parts on the overall resilience of the supply chain were highlighted. Theoretical analysis of the findings was based on theoretical aspects of SCR. This was especially regarding efficient spare parts inventory management. The study results revealed the factors responsible adoption of the AM technology. A novel approach was undertaken to study the effect of AM adoption on “time-to-market” of newly launched products.

The research provided insights regarding practical applications of AM adoption in spare parts procurement. The study could be beneficial to the early adopters of AM across industries for making managerial decisions. Unfamiliarity of supply chain managers with the AM technology was believed to be a major reason to adopt the technology. The study provided essential inputs regarding challenges and alternate adoption strategies of AM. Thus, the research was believed to be of potential value for creating awareness among supply chain managers regarding AM technology.

The research provided new insights on the impact of AM adoption in the context of SCR toward efficient spare parts inventory management. Various limiting and facilitating factors specific to Indian context were also explored.

This paper investigates the buy online and pick up in-store cooperation (BOPSC) of online and offline retailers. Specifically, this study solves the following questions: (1) What is the impact of BOPSC on their optimal price and sales volume of products? (2) When should an online retailer and an offline retailer conduct the BOPSC strategy with each other?

The paper first establishes two game models to explore the equilibriums of online and offline retailers in non-BOPSC and BOPSC. Then the condition for online and offline retailers to implement BOPSC strategy are determined. Furthermore, the applicability of the BOPSC strategy is enhanced by incorporating numerical analysis.

The study’s findings reveal that BOPSC strategy will not always beneficial to online and offline retailers, which depends on the total cost of online shopping and the product valuation of consumers. BOPSC strategy leads to the increase of prices and online orders, and the demand of offline retailer is eroded. Moreover, BOPS cooperation between different retailers is easier to achieve than omni-channel integration strategy. When the convenience difference between offline shopping and BOPSC pick-up is moderate, the effectiveness of BOPSC strategy can be improved.

This study has the following two main contributions: Firstly, the authors investigate the effects of BOPSC strategy on the prices of online and offline retailers. The study results show that the BOPSC strategy alleviates price competition and promotes a win–win situation between online retailers and offline retailers. Secondly, this paper mainly studies the cooperative behavior between online and offline retailers and reveals the optimal conditions for online and offline retailers to adopt BOPSC strategy. It can help small- and medium-sized online and offline retailers to choose suitable products for BOPSC strategy, so as to achieve the purpose of increasing profit.

In recent years, private brands for e-commerce platforms have experienced rapid growth. However, whether these platforms developing private brands should share their demand information with others and how such information sharing affects the sales format selection of national brand manufacturers have puzzled firm managers in practice. This paper aims to investigate the information-sharing strategy for the e-commerce platform and its influence on the sales format selection in the presence of the private brand.

The authors use a game-theoretical model to examine the interaction between the information-sharing strategy and sales format selection in a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a platform that operates a private brand.

The equilibrium results show that when the commission rate is low, the manufacturer favors agency selling, and the platform shares demand information with the manufacturer; when the commission rate is high, the manufacturer prefers reselling, and the platform does not share the information. This preference is affected by information forecasting accuracy; as the information forecasting accuracy increases, the manufacturer prefers to adopt agency selling, and the platform tends to share the information. Interestingly, under agency selling, sharing information with the manufacturer can increase the platform’s profit from selling the private brand and achieve a win-win situation for them. Furthermore, we show that the manufacturer can inspire the platform to share the information with himself by adopting agency selling, whereas the platform sharing the information improves the probability that the manufacturer adopts agency selling. Moreover, the manufacturer may have a first-mover advantage. In particular, the manufacturer moving first increases the likelihood that the manufacturer chooses agency selling and the platform shares the information.

This paper contributes to sales format literature by exploring the effect of information sharing strategy on sales format selection in the presence of the private brand and can help manufacturers and platforms to make suitable decisions regarding information sharing and sales format selection.

The confirmation of receipt of orders by consumers means that the online retailer actually receives the payments on many retail platforms (e.g. Taobao). In order to recoup funds as soon as possible, the retailer will take steps (e.g. improving the level of delivery and adopting a rebate policy) to encourage consumers to confirm receipt earlier. It is significant for the retailer to identify an appropriate strategy and determine the optimal product price. To address the above issues, this paper examines and compares the pricing strategies and profits under different strategies to show some managerial insights for the retailer's decision-making.

In this paper, the authors discuss four models, i.e. adopting common delivery and offering consumers no rebates, adopting common delivery and offering rebates, adopting fast delivery and offering no rebates and adopting fast delivery and offering rebates, which the retailer may consider. Under different models, consumer utility and firm's profit structure are disparate. After comparing the retailer's profits under four models, the optimal strategy, profit and product price are obtained.

Some interesting results are as follows. When the cost of fast delivery is not very high, improving the level of delivery would bring more profit to the retailer and create a positive impact on consumers. Interestingly, our results also show that offering proper rebates to stimulate consumers to confirm receipt early only serves to improve the profit only when the motivation of consumers to confirm the receipt is very low. Moreover, the authors find that a higher level of delivery services can promote the implementation of the rebate policy to improve the retailer's earnings.

This paper is the first study on the transaction mode of retail platforms and the problem of confirming receipt by a model-based method.