Sharing the service or not? The strategies of optimal prices and logistics service in an online marketplace

Abstract In modern supply chain ecosystems, brand owners increasingly adopt authorized reseller partnerships while concurrently operating their own flagship stores alongside resellers' exclusive stores. This study investigates the strategic implications of logistics service sharing between vertically related e‐commerce entities, particularly focusing on operational practices where the brand outsources logistics services to authorized resellers. Unlike prior literature that predominantly focuses on product competition or platform logistics, this research extends the analytical framework by incorporating brand‐owned logistics and consumer preference between two stores into the dual‐channel competition model. Through a dual‐mode analytical framework comparing no‐service‐sharing and service‐sharing scenarios, our findings demonstrate that the brand can strategically adjust the unit logistics service fee to moderate price competition with the reseller. Service sharing is most beneficial for the brand when the third‐party logistics (TPL) cost remains in a moderate range. Moreover, when TPL costs lie within a certain interval and consumer preference for the reseller's exclusive store is strong, the potential for Pareto improvement through logistics sharing narrows. In the extensions, we consider the endogenous brand logistics fee, logistics cost‐sharing contract, and the platform's reselling mode to check the robustness of the results or to draw some new conclusions.