Threat or opportunity? E-commerce platform’s store brand introduction in the presence of CSR concern

The introduction of giant e-commerce platforms’ store brand (SB) significantly threatens manufacturers’ national brand (NB). Many manufacturers are now emphasizing corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a means to mitigate or counteract these adverse effects. Similarly, e-commerce platforms are also beginning to prioritize CSR. This paper, driven by real-world practices, investigates the e-commerce platform’s SB introduction with considering different CSR concern cases (i.e., without CSR, manufacturer CSR, e-commerce platform CSR, as well as both supply chain members CSR) and its effects on equilibrium outcomes under the fixed fee contract. Our findings reveal that the e-commerce platform’s SB introduction is not always detrimental to the manufacturer across different CSR cases, which depends on the quality and cost of SB and the CSR degree. When the platform has CSR concern, the higher-quality SB poses a significant threat to the manufacturer, regardless of whether the SB introduction is substantive or feigning. Notably, the manufacturer will consistently benefit from the substantive SB introduction if she has CSR concern. Moreover, in the scenario where both supply chain members prioritize CSR, the manufacturer benefits from SB introduction if her CSR degree exceeds a threshold that decreases with the platform’s CSR degree, regardless of the e-commerce platform substantively or feignedly introduces SB.