Selecting the Appropriate Platform: The Varied Effects of Service Merchant Marketing Strategies on the Performance of Supply Chain Participants

Traditionally, catering enterprises were restricted to exclusive agreements with food delivery platforms. However, recent regulatory changes in various countries addressing the “one out of two” practices of these platforms have facilitated the ability of catering businesses to engage with multiple platforms simultaneously. The existing body of literature primarily focuses on the competitive interactions between bilateral platforms or the optimal strategies for exclusive trading platform supply chains, yet it does not adequately investigate the differentiated impacts of merchant marketing strategies within this competitive framework. This study seeks to evaluate the effects of diverse strategies on the performance of supply chain participants, concentrating on four distinct strategies employed by catering businesses in their selection of service platforms and the execution of marketing initiatives. By employing game theory and inverse solving methodologies, the research determines the optimal profits for each member of the supply chain under various strategies, as well as the influence of valuation discount factors on member profits. The results reveal that the marketing efforts of service providers across different platforms significantly affect the performance of supply chain participants. Additionally, the profits of both service providers and platforms are correlated with the cost coefficient related to the marketing efforts of service providers, and these marketing initiatives also impact the perceived value of platform coupons. This research provides evidence for the positive influence of marketing decisions made by service providers.