The selection of sales channels considering consumer behavior preferences in a co-branding strategy

As a marketing strategy, co-branding has become popular among brand manufacturers in recent years. Unlike previous studies on co-branding, we extend the research from manufacturer-to-manufacturer coopetition strategies to a platform-based supply chain. This paper builds two game theory models involving two manufacturers and one online platform, and divides consumers into Mavericks and Herds, who seek uniqueness and uniformity, respectively, and discusses the channel selection and the market positioning strategy. Some interesting findings are obtained, first, the equilibrium decisions are improved and the optimal profits are enhanced by considering the upstream and downstream cooperation. Second, the online retail channel is chosen when the revenue-sharing ratio is medium and the commission rate is low. Third, brand manufacturers have more opportunities to choose the online retail channel when the co-branded product is marketed to Herds, which is summarized as the market segmentation effect.