Research on Advertising and Pricing in E-Supply Chain Under Different Dominant Modes

The E-supply chain is formed gradually along with the development of network, which is getting more attention among enterprises with unique advantages. Three E-supply chain operation modes are constructed in this paper, then the optimal pricing and advertising strategies under those modes are studied and compared, which are demonstrated with numerical examples. The results of comparison and analysis show that: Selling price, network platform service level, advertising investment and the profits of manufacturer, network platform and E-supply chain all increase with advertising effectiveness of stimulating demand growth. Under centralized decision-making mode, service level is highest, advertising investment is largest and the profit of E-supply chain is highest as well. When manufacturer leads decentralized decision-making mode, not only network service level, advertising investment and the profit of manufacturer can gain better results, but also profit of network platform can be higher while the advertisement effect of increasing demand is big enough. Additionally, it is confirmed that centralized decision-making is better than decentralized decision-making for system operation. Besides, decentralized decision-making mode led by manufacturer is superior to it led by network platform on the condition that advertisement effect is obvious.