To celebrate Black History Month, the Faculty of Business and Economics (FOBE) invites you to join this Distinguished Business Speaker Series seminar by Dr. Simon Sigue, the President of the Academy of African Business and Development (AABD) and a former Editor-in-Chief of Journal of African Business. The FoBE regularly invites distinguished business speakers to share their business insights and cutting edge research. These are great learning opportunities for students, faculty, staff, and communities.

Seminar Details: 

Title:    Profitability of private brands of e-commerce platforms offering competing national brands under agency selling

Speaker:    Dr. Simon Sigue, Athabasca University

Date:        February 29, 2024 (Thursday)

Time:        1:00-2:00 pm EST

Mode of delivery:    Online via Google Meet

Abstract: This research investigates whether an e-commerce platform, which allows two competing manufacturers to sell their national brands of a given product directly to consumers for an agency fee, could profitably introduce a private brand to compete with these national brands. We develop two game-theoretic models where the platform does and does not offer a private brand and obtain equilibrium solutions. By comparing the equilibrium outcomes of the two games, we derive the following key insights. Introducing a private brand is not always in the platform’s best interest. However, when the platform can make a profit by introducing a private brand, it is at the expense of the national brand manufacturers as they are pressured to reduce their prices and also experience a decline in sales. Specific to the use of agency selling (rather than reselling), we found, among others, that the agency fees that manufacturers pay to the platform play a critical role in determining the profitability of introducing private brands. Finally, while under certain conditions, e-commerce platforms may price their PBs (Private Brands) higher than the NBs (National Brands), introducing PBs by e-commerce platforms enhances consumer welfare by reducing NB prices and expanding consumer demand in the product category.

RSVP: Click here to RSVP.