Demand information sharing and service investment strategy in a third-party platform supply chain

In e-commerce, numerous third-party (3p) platforms act as marketplaces for upstream suppliers and resellers. One critical decision confronting these platforms is whether to share demand information with these upstream sellers. This study presents a 3p platform supply chain with four information-sharing models, where supply chain members may adopt different demand-enhancing service investment strategies: a platform's service (PS) or an upstream supplier's service (MS). Our analysis demonstrates that the service investment strategy significantly shapes the optimal information-sharing model for the platform and upstream sellers. Specifically, under the PS strategy, the 3p platform only shares information with the reseller in cases of high commission rates and robust channel competition, while opting to share with both the upstream supplier and the reseller otherwise. Conversely, under the MS strategy, the 3p platform chooses the full information sharing model. We also find that a higher service's cost performance enhances the positive impact of the MS strategy on the information sharing value. When service investment strategy and demand information sharing are considered together, an increase in commission rates or a decrease in forecast variability may motivate the upstream supplier to entrust the 3p platform to invest in services.