How should local Brick-and-Mortar retailers offer delivery service in a pandemic World? Self-building Vs. O2O platform.

ABSTRACT: The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically changed consumer purchase behavior, and the "stay-at-home order" policy has altered the operations of brick-and-mortar (B&M) retail stores. These changes have induced local B&M retailers to start online retailing with home delivery as an added option. B&M retailers can choose to offer online retailing on their own (referred to as self-building mode) or via a third-party online-to-offline (O2O) platform (referred to as platform mode). This paper investigates how the interplay between capacity, pricing, and online retailing mode is affected by the absence/presence of the pandemic. We characterize the equilibrium between the B&M retailer and the O2O platform provider. We find that the impact of the "stay-at-home orders" on B&M retailers differs by the on

SUBMITTER: He B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8483890 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature