Research On Cooperation Mechanism Between A Restaurant And A Third-party Online Platform

With the development and maturity of third-party online platforms in the catering industry(such as Meituan,Dianping,Koubei,etc.),a lot of restaurants are beginning to seek business relationship with a third-party online platform by paying a certain commission fee.It is becoming more and more popular as a new distribution channel to replace traditional offline sales.Some restaurants will even offer discounts to online consumers as a marketing strategy.In this new food supply chain,a third-party online platform acts as intermediaries that connect supplier(restaurants)to demand-side(consumers).In such a two-side market,how the restaurant as the dominant party should decide the cooperation mechanism with the third-party online platform(i.e.how to choose the cooperation strategy with the third-party online platform,and how to price for online consumers),and what kind of reaction should be taken by the third-party online platform to maximize its own interests,not only the real problems faced by enterprises in production and life,but also the discussion and research of many scholars in academia.In order to explore the above-mentioned problems,this paper established a Stackelberg game model based on the related literature analysis and the principal-agent theory.The restaurant is the delegator and the leader in the game;the third-party online plat-form acts as the agent and the follower in the game.Based on the above model,the research contents and main conclusions of this paper are as follows:First,collaborative pricing research between a restaurant and a third-party online platform.It is mainly a study of commission rate of the third-party online platform,as well as restaurant pricing for online consumers.Under the premise that the two parties are willing to establish a cooperative relationship,when the restaurant plays a Stackelberg game with a third-party online platform acted a leader,it simultaneously determines the discount rate offered to online consumers and the commission rate given to the third-party online platform.The online platform acts as a follower and determines the level of effort to promote the restaurant.The results show that restaurants have two different online pricing strategies:when the level of service provided by the restaurant is higher and the corresponding retail price is higher,the restaurant will give online discounts while giving a certain commission rate to the third-party online platform;when the restaurant provides a lower level of service and the corresponding retail price is lower,the restaurant will only pay the commission rate of the third-party online platform to establish a business partnership without online discounts.Second,research on cooperation programs between a restaurant and a third-party online platform.It is mainly about the conditions under which the restaurant will seek to establish cooperation with a third-party online platform,and what kind of pricing strategies should be adopted by the restaurant in different situations.In reality,restaurants don’t always want to build partnerships with a third-party online platform.In this part,the paper solves the global Stackelberg model and analyzes it with corresponding examples.The results show that the restaurant are encouraged to establish business relationships with it only when the third-party online platform has a relatively large number of users.Third,consider an extended study of the lower level of technical on third-party online platforms.A third-party online platform costs a certain amount of money when promoting restaurants.The cost of the third-party online platform of different technical levels is different when the same effort is promoted.The higher the technical level,the lower the corresponding cost.In the first two research contents of this paper,the technical level of the third-party online platform is above the normal level of the market,which satisfies the situation of most enterprises in the market.However,it is undeniable that there are some small enterprises with low level of technology at the same time,and all enterprises are developing step by step from start-ups.In this section,this paper examines the pricing strategy of restaurants when working with a third-party online platform that is relatively inferior in technology.It turned out that the pricing strategy of the restaurant did change in this case.In summary,the research results of this paper provide a very scientific and powerful management and operation advice for the enterprise managers in the real world while enriching the two-side market management theory of the catering industry.