Many manufacturers selling through online retail platforms are deploying physical showrooms to facilitate consumers’ learning about their products. To uncover the effects of the manufacturer-deployed showrooms on participants in a platform-based distribution channel, we establish a game-theoretic model wherein a manufacturer sells through an online retailer under either agency selling or wholesale selling, and consumers decide sequentially on showrooming and purchasing. We find that, firstly, despite the merits of showrooms in resolving consumers’ valuation uncertainty, the deployment of showrooms may unexpectedly engender more product returns (i.e., return exacerbation effect), which hurts the retailer under wholesale selling when the consumers’ travel cost is moderate. Second, the manufacturer under each selling format tends to benefit (suffer) from showrooms in the case of low (high) travel cost; in addition, the decrease in commission rate boosts the gain from showroom deployment, making the manufacturer under agency selling more likely to deploy showrooms, especially when the travel cost is moderate. Third, in anticipation of the manufacturer’s (not) deploying showrooms and the corresponding profit impacts, the channel members may adopt varying preferences for the selling format. Notably, they have aligned preferences for agency selling with medium low commission rate, while neither prefers agency selling with relatively high commission rate and travel cost. This study sheds light on the flourishing practice of manufacturer-deployed showrooms, clarifying their impacts on the platform-based distribution channel.

中文翻译：

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制造商展厅部署与线上销售业态的互动


许多通过在线零售平台销售的制造商正在部署实体展厅，以方便消费者了解他们的产品。为了揭示制造商部署的陈列室对基于平台的分销渠道参与者的影响，我们建立了一个博弈论模型，其中制造商通过在线零售商以代理销售或批发销售的方式进行销售，消费者依次决定陈列室和购买。我们发现，首先，尽管陈列室在解决消费者估价不确定性方面有其优点，但陈列室的部署可能会意外地产生更多的产品退货（即退货加剧效应），当消费者的旅行成本降低时，这会损害批发销售下的零售商。缓和。其次，每种销售业态下的制造商在差旅成本低（高）的情况下往往会从展厅中受益（受损）；此外，佣金率的下降提高了陈列室部署的收益，使得代销制造商更有可能部署陈列室，尤其是在差旅成本适中的情况下。第三，考虑到制造商（不）部署展厅以及相应的利润影响，渠道成员可能会采取不同的销售形式偏好。值得注意的是，他们都偏好中低佣金率的代销，而不喜欢较高佣金率和差旅成本的代销。这项研究揭示了制造商部署展厅的蓬勃发展实践，阐明了它们对基于平台的分销渠道的影响。