Mobile payment, third-party payment platform entry and information sharing in supply chains

Abstract

With the development of information technology, increasing retailers cooperate with third-party payment platforms (3PPs) to provide mobile payment service for consumers. The entry of 3PPs into supply chains, not only changes the cash flow, but also decreases consumer price sensitivity and stimulates demand by facilitating credit consumptions. Moreover, information sharing becomes more feasible with the help of 3PPs. To study the impacts of 3PP entry, we build game-theoretic models in a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer, a retailer and a 3PP, and derive the equilibrium in both the non-information sharing and information sharing cases. We show that the 3PP should make a reasonable commission rate which can lure the retailer to introduce the 3PP as well as maintain the 3PP’s profitability. The 3PP entry allows the retailer to set a higher price without decreasing the demand. However, to seize all of the benefit of the 3PP entry, the first mover manufacturer increases the wholesale price to a large extent. As a result, the 3PP entry causes a win-lose situation for the manufacturer and the retailer. The supply chain can be better off from the 3PP entry if it can significantly decrease consumer price sensitivity or its fixed investment cost is low. Furthermore, we find that information sharing benefits the manufacturer and the 3PP but harms the retailer. While information sharing always decreases the expected profit for the supply chain without the 3PP, it may increase that for the supply chain with the 3PP. To improve the supply chain profitability, we suggest to provide incentives for retailer information sharing if the 3PP can significantly decrease consumer price sensitivity (i.e., the proportion of the 3PP users is higher, the grace period of credit consumption is lower, or the cash opportunity cost is lower).