Abstract:

In order to facilitate the promotion of green products production and consumption， it aims to explore how green product firms should balance between the cost of blockchain adoption and uncertain short-term benefit， given that blockchain technology can be adopted to improve consumers’ belief on green products sold through e-commerce platforms. To do so， the coordination of blockchain adoption and sales mode （either marketplace mode or reselling mode） between the green product manufacturer and the e-commerce platform is studied. By considering whether or not blockchain technology is adopted， and whether the green products are sold through marketplace mode or reselling mode， four models are built and compared. The results are as follows. In the marketplace mode， as compared to the case where blockchain technology is not adopted， blockchain adoption leads to a higher retailing price， but the effort exerted by the manufacturer to improve the greenness of product and the demand of green products may decrease. Meanwhile， the e-commerce platform will ask for a lower service fee. In the reselling mode， adopting blockchain technology does not necessarily lead to increase of retailing price， and wholesale price， greenness effort and demand may also decrease. In the presence of blockchain cost per unit product， blockchain adoption is less likely to occur in reselling mode than marketplace mode， and the manufacturer is less likely to prefer blockchain technology than the e-commerce platform. Both parties in either sales mode will agree on blockchain adoption only if the unit cost of using blockchain is relatively low and the consumers’ sensitivity of green products is relatively high. In the marketplace mode the impact of blockchain adoption on consumer surplus and social welfare depends on consumers’ sensitivity of green products， while unit cost of using blockchain also plays a role in the reselling mode. Blockchain adoption will not affect the e-commerce platform’s preference on sales mode， but will make the manufacturer more likely to prefer marketplace mode， which indicates that adopting blockchain leads to a higher chance for both parties to achieve coordination of sales mode. Besides， no matter blockchain adoption occurs or not， marketplace mode generates more consumer surplus and social welfare than reselling mode. It sheds light on the literature from three aspects. （i） Considering that the e-commerce platform endogenously decides market service fee， this paper complements the study on sales mode by finding that， in the presence of blockchain adoption cost， marketplace mode still dominates reselling mode with respect to consumer surplus and social welfare. （ii） The model of green products production and consumption is constructed with factors like greenness belief， consumer sensitivity on greenness， blockchain adoption cost， which enriches the literature on green products. （iii） This paper helps to clarify how green technologies like blockchain affect firms’ production & operation decisions. The main managerial insight of this paper lies in that， marketplace mode is more likely to promote the adoption of blockchain on green products than reselling mode， and the e-commerce platform should play a major role in expediting the circulation of green products supported by green technologies.

Key words: green products, marketplace mode, reselling mode, blockchain