产品与物流服务双维竞争下品牌商的跨境包邮策略研究

Brand-owners’cross-border free-shipping decisions considering the two-dimensional competition of product and logistics service

在跨境电商中,包邮服务连同产品价格对消费者购买决策产生共同影响.当品牌商提供包邮时,它将一并承担跨境运费和进口关税;否则,这些费用将由消费者支付.基于此,本文考虑产品和物流服务双维竞争,针对同一跨境电商平台中品牌商A和B的包邮(F)或不包邮(N)决策,构建了四种策略组合下的模型,探讨品牌商的包邮策略选择问题.对比不同策略组合下的均衡结果,发现物流服务费用差异及产品差异对品牌商的决策起决定性作用.当产品差异较大时,品牌商A和B之间将出现(N,N)、(N,F)、(F,F)三种均衡策略,具体均衡策略的出现由消费者直接承担的物流服务费用决定.反之,当产品差异较小时,二者的均衡策略为(N,N)、(F,F).本文还发现关税税率的变化将会显著影响各种均衡策略形成的可能性,关税税率提高驱使品牌商选择趋同的包邮策略,即(N,N)、(F,F)更可能出现.这体现出跨境场景中关税对企业决策的独特作用.

In cross-border e-commerce,free-shipping service and product price jointly influence consumers’purchase decisions.When brand-owners offer free-shipping services,they will bear both logistics and import tariff fees.Otherwise,these fees will be paid by the consumers.In this paper,we study the free-shipping decisions of two brand-owners A and B when they sell through a common cross-border e-commerce platform with the consideration of the two-dimensional competition of product and logistics service.We develop four strategy combinations(N,N),(N,F),(F,N)and(F,F)and focus on the strategies of brand-owners A and B in terms of free-shipping.We find that the relative size of logistics service costs paid by brand owners and consumers and product differentiation have a decisive influence on brand owners’decisions on free-shipping.We find that there exist three equilibrium strategies(N,N),(N,F),and(F,F)when the two brand-owners’products are highly differentiated,depending on the logistics fee directly borne by consumers.In contrast,when product competition is fierce,(N,N)and(F,F)are the equilibrium strategies.The tariff rate may affect the possibility of various equilibriums significantly,and the increase of tariff rate may lead to the convergence of brand owners’free-shipping strategies,that is,(N,N)and(F,F)are more likely to occur.This shows the unique role of tariffs in the decision of corporate in cross-border settings.