Pricing and promotion efforts strategies of dual-channel green supply chain considering service cooperation and free-riding between online and offline retailers

As more and more companies introduce the marketing model of online direct sales channel, channel conflicts are becoming increasingly intensified. To address these conflicts, we construct a dual-channel green supply chain model. The online retailer entrusts after-sales services to the offline retailer to achieve online and offline after-sales service cooperation. The free-riding behavior of the online retailer is caused by the offline retailer’s green promotion. On the basis, the study explored the coordinated decision-making on pricing and promotion efforts. In addition, the study further analyzed the influences of the after-sales service level, consumer sensitivity of after-sales service level, green promotion effort level, and free-riding degree on supply chain decisions. In this study, we obtained the optimal decision values of online and offline retailers, and the optimal product sales price, demand, and profit of the offline retailer are higher than those of the online retailer. We further found that the improvement of after-sales service level drives up the green product prices and service cooperation fee in the dual channel, and the more sensitive the consumers are to the service level, the greater the demand for green products. The improvement of green promotion efforts level promotes the sales of green products, and the free-riding behavior can benefit the online retailer but also bring various negative impacts on the offline retailer. The findings of the study have theoretical guiding significance for dual-channel green supply chains to make pricing and promotion efforts decisions in the complex market environment.