Abstract:

The rapid development of e-commerce not only brings more sales opportunities for small and medium retailers， but also provides financing services for them to solve their capital shortage issue. Such small and medium retailers are usually difficult to obtain adequate capital in reality and lack of anti-risk capabilities， which make them often adopt conservative strategies when making production and sales decisions， showing the characteristics of risk aversion. Since 2014， JD.com’s financing service has served 300，000 small and medium companies and 700，000 individual merchants， with a historical cumulative loan amount of nearly 600 billion. As an online sales channel for third-party retailers， e-commerce platforms charge certain usage fee according to retailers’ sales revenue， and also obtain corresponding interest income by providing financing services for them. Retailers that have obtained financing service ensure the stability of the supply chain procurement and production business， and even expand sales， which further increases the platform's fee income， forming a mutually beneficial cooperative relationship between the two parties. On the other hand， it is commonly seen that platform companies now often establish their own retailing channels， adopt the resale model to sell products similar to those of third-party retailers， or even develop their own brand products to directly compete with other retailers. For example， “JD.com Jing Zao”， which was launched in January 2018， is a brand that JD.com cooperates with outsourcing manufacturers to sell on its platform. In this study， it is interesting in the sales and financing strategies of the platform and third-party sellers in the e-commerce supply chain environment where competition and cooperation coexist， and how the risk-averse characteristics of SMEs affect the optimal decision-making of supply chain members. To this end， an e-commerce co-petition supply chain composed of a risk-averse retailer， a risk-averse supplier and a risk-neutral platform is considered， and three scenarios are developed： no one is financially-constraint， the supplier is financially-constraint but the retailer is not； and the retailer is financially-constraint but the supplier is not. The game theory is used to investigate the optimal decisions of each supply chain member and their utility when both retailer and supplier are sufficiently funded or the platform finances the capital-constrained retailer or supplier. The results of this study have shown that： （1） risk aversion of the retailer or supplier will significantly affect the optimal decision of each company， and the correlation between the optimal decision of supply chain members and the risk aversion coefficient depends on whether the retailer or supplier has financial constraints； （2） the retailer and platform’s optimal retail prices when the supplier is capital-constrained are higher than not capital-constrained， but when the retailer has capital constraints， the retail prices are most affected by the supplier’s production costs which makes them greater than when nobody is capital-constrained and the supplier is capital-constrained； （3） supplier’s risk aversion will reduce its own utility and the platform’s profit but increase the retailer’s utility； the retailer’s risk aversion will cause the loss of its own utility but increase the supplier’s utility. This may increase or decrease the platform’s profit， which depends on whether the retailer or supplier has financial constraints.

Key words: e-commerce financing, risk aversion, pricing decision, company competition