Abstract: The global economy is increasingly characterized by digitization and informatization. In the digital era, the integration of digital platform and supply chain is a promising direction for which the financial services of digital platforms are widely used in companies such as Tmall’s financing plan, Alibaba’s digital supply chain scheme as well as B2B and B2C transactions. Different from bank financing and credit financing, the digital platform provides online sales channels for suppliers and becomes a common party in the supply chain. Meanwhile, the platform holds data, technology and capital, and becomes a supplier of funds. With a closer combination of platform and supply chain, in the financing area, how to balance the functions of financing providers and sales channels at the same time, and how to design a perfect transaction credit contract and achieve the ultimate optimal equilibrium, are of great practical significance. Based on these, we propose the research question as follows:
1)What is the impact of capital structure of suppliers on the optimal operational decision-making and profits of each participant,namely,will the platform choose financing?
2)From the view of platform, how to control the interest rate and commission fee to make a larger production and a higher profit?
In this paper, we construct a supply chain model consisting of a digital platform and two competing suppliers to examine the impacts of direct financing of the platform on profits of supply chain members and the platform. We set up a random demand environment and a competitive market structure. The demand follows a downward sloping function and the market size is random; on the other hand, two suppliers make their own production decisions and form a Cournot competition in horizontal level. The suppliers’ funding structure is also an important influencing factor in our game. As such, we consider four cases of symmetrical and sufficient capital structure, symmetrical and insufficient capital structure and asymmetric capital structure. In addition, as the leader of supply chain, the platform can flexibly design the financing interest rate and the commission rate firstly, and then sign the financing contract with the suppliers requiring that after the completion of sales, it can obtain the interest and part of the sales revenue. If the suppliers eventually default, the platform will receive all the sales revenue. As for methodology, we use backward induction to find the production equilibrium of the suppliers and the optimal profit of each participant. Then, we make numerical simulation to analyze the influence of exogenous factors such as platform commission rate and product substitution rate on supply chain equilibrium output, the suppliers’ equilibrium profits and optimal platform profit under different scenarios.
Through theorical analysis and numerical study, the results show that the platform can always make more profits by supporting the financially short-running suppliers, and the platform prefers suppliers with weaker financial positions. The platform has a tendency to reach cooperative financing contracts with both suppliers at the same time, because the profit of the platform created by financing two supplyers is more than that by only one. Platform commissions have two opposite effects onsuppliers’production quantity decisions: a lower commission rate can incentivize well-funded suppliers to produce more, while the production quantity of underfunded suppliers increases as commission rate rises. In terms of competition intensity, a smaller product differentiation of suppliers would bring more intense competition, which negatively influences the suppliers’production incentive. There is a negative correlation between the supplier’s profit and the platform commission. Obviously, the higher the commission fee, the greater the exploitation of suppliers by the platform. Then, a larger part of the suppliers’revenue flows to the platform, while production is reduced and profit decreased for suppliers. The above conclusions can provide useful implications for digital platform financing.

Key words: platform financing, Cournot competition, capital constraint, supply chain finance

摘要： 数字平台参与供应链运营,一方面为供应商卖家提供线上销售渠道,成为供应链的一个共同方;另一方面,数字平台掌握数据、技术和资本,成为供应链中资金的供给方。本文构建一个数字平台和两个竞争供应商组成的供应链模型,研究平台直接融资对供应链和平台利润的影响。研究表明,平台总是能从财务短缺的供应商融资中获得更多利润,平台更偏好财务状况较差的供应商。此外,平台佣金对供应商的生产数量决策有两个相反的影响:越低的佣金率能激励资金充足的供应商生产更多产品,而资金短缺的供应商的生产数量随着佣金定价上涨而增加。供应商利润与平台佣金呈负相关关系。

关键词: 平台融资, 古诺竞争, 资金约束, 供应链金融