Abstract:

Instant retail services， a pattern of online ordering and store delivery built by platforms and physical retailers， is a new retail model that fully utilizes online customer traffics and store delivery advantages to meet consumers' immediate demand. Based on the platform’s online channel and the physical retailer’s offline channel， the introduction strategy of an instant channel for a platform supply chain is explored. Taking the consumers’ time valuation into consideration， the impact of time valuation， delivery timeliness， and commission fee on channel co-opetition and game equilibrium is studied. The result shows that the introduction of the instant channel does not necessarily increase or decrease the price of the platform and retailer. Rather， a moderate time consumption of the instant channel increases the price of the platform and retailer. The result also shows that the platform benefits from the instant channel when the instant channel’s time consumption is at an intermediate value and the commission fee is high. The better the timeliness of instant channel delivery， the more beneficial it is for the retailer. Particularly， when the timeliness of the instant channel is moderate， the retailer can derive increased profit from the high-price strategy of the offline channel even if the commission fee is high. In this situation， the platform supply chain reaches the Pareto optimization. Nevertheless， if the retailer adopts a differential pricing strategy for the instant channel and offline channel， a high commission fee is not conducive to the opening of the instant channel. The platform and retailer should negotiate a low commission fee and strengthen the delivery timeliness of the instant channel. The results can provide theoretical references for instant retail platforms and physical retail enterprises in determining pricing and cooperation relationship strategies.

Key words: platform supply chain, instant retail, introduction strategy, time value, channel co-opetition