How to cooperate in a three-tier food delivery service supply chain

This paper studies a three-tier food delivery service supply chain (FDSSC) composed of one restaurant that is responsible for providing food and catering services, one food delivery platform that is responsible for providing big data marketing, and one rider that is responsible for providing food delivery services. Then, differential game theory is used to model and derive the objective functions and equilibrium strategies of the FDSSC members in four scenarios: decentralization, independent delivery, independent production, and centralization. The effects of cooperation patterns among the FDSSC members, consumer channel preferences, commission rates, and food delivery fees of the food delivery platform on the optimal decision-making and performance of the FDSSC members are discussed. Through comparative analysis and sensitivity analysis of essential parameters, we summarize the following conclusions. First, whether it is independent production and independent delivery, any cooperation between the FDSSC members is always beneficial for the profit improvement of all FDSSC members. Therefore, the restaurant, food delivery platform, and rider should actively seek pairwise or tripartite cooperation to achieve common profit enhancement. In addition, when the online channel preference of consumers increases, the restaurant should continuously enhance the food quality and catering service level to ensure an amazing dining experience for consumers, which is conducive to the formation of a healthy dual-channel food sales model. Last, a higher commission rate can increase the profits of the food delivery platform and the whole FDSSC, but it damages the revenue of the restaurant, while a higher food delivery fee can bring more profits to the restaurant and rider.