Information sharing in an e‐tailing supply chain for fresh produce with supplier encroachment

Abstract This paper considers an e‐tailing supply chain for fresh produce (E‐FSC) composed of a supplier investing in freshness‐keeping effort and an e‐retailer providing value‐added service. We study the e‐retailer's information sharing strategy with supplier encroachment. First, we discuss the supplier's encroachment strategy without or with information sharing and indicate that the e‐retailer may profit more from encroachment. Second, we explore the e‐retailer's information sharing strategy under two scenarios. Under the independent scenario, the e‐retailer may share information when the freshness sensitivity is comparatively high, which cannot affect the supplier's encroachment strategy. Under the interactive scenario, the e‐retailer influences the supplier's encroachment strategy through an information sharing strategy. The e‐retailer may share (withhold) information to induce (deter) encroachment when the competition intensity is comparatively low or high (moderate). Finally, we discuss the influence of the entry cost on E‐FSC members’ profits, which finds that increasing entry cost may improve the supplier's profit.