Abstract:

With the increasingly fierce international competition， company competition is gradually changing to supply chain competition. E-commerce platforms are actively strengthening deep cooperation within the supply chain to enhance overall competitiveness， such as equity investments. Especially in a market with huge growth potential， e-commerce platforms are trying to find supply chain equity partners to expand the market. In recent years， however， the rise of private labels has provided them with new options， which has made equity partnerships increasingly complex. More and more e-commerce platforms are considering introducing private labels to seize the market alone or in partnership with manufacturers. In other words， e-commerce platforms need to weigh the gains from equity investment in market expansion against the loss of private label market share due to increased competition. Therefore， based on the market competition brought by private labels， a supply chain composed of a manufacturer and an e-commerce platform is established. By comparing the change of the e-commerce platform's profit with private label introduction， whether the e-commerce platform will invest in upstream manufacturers after private label introduction is studied. Further， the e-commerce platform's private label introduction strategy is studied and the impact of private label introduction on the e-commerce platform's equity investment strategy is analyzed. It is found that the e-commerce platform always tends to introduce private label， which increases the likelihood of adopting equity investment strategy. Further analysis shows that the e-commerce platforms's equity investment strategy is affected by investment efficiency， shareholding ratio and brand advantage. When the investment efficiency is low， the e-commerce platform tends to take equity investment with lower shareholding ratio. However， when the shareholding ratio is high， the e-commerce platform's equity investment strategy depends on two brand advantages. Specifically， in the case of large advantages of national brand and small gap between the two brands， the e-commerce platform adopts equity investment strategy. Or， in the case of significant advantages of private label， the e-commerce platform adopts equity investment strategy. These conclusions provide a possible explanation for the significant differences in equity investment strategy of e-commerce platforms after private label introduction.

Key words: e-commerce platform, equity investment, private label, national brand