Platforms · Exploratory analysis of seller sales data plus a duopoly/sequential-game model explaining the observed pattern.
Can Third-Party Sellers Benefit from a Platform’s Entry to the Market?
Service Science · 2023
Summary
After entry, similar third-party sellers charged higher prices, obtained higher demand and earned higher profit; the proposed explanation requires moderate platform potential and sufficient spillover.
For your marketing
Possible founder application
Use it as a behavioral mechanism or experiment-design reference, not a direct forecast for a SaaS funnel.
Reported result
What the study found
After entry, similar third-party sellers charged higher prices, obtained higher demand and earned higher profit; the proposed explanation requires moderate platform potential and sufficient spillover.
Research question
What the authors investigated
Can platform entry benefit incumbent third-party sellers rather than harm them?
Design
Exploratory analysis of seller sales data plus a duopoly/sequential-game model explaining the observed pattern.
Sample and setting
JD.com sales data for one product category in March 2018; third-party sellers before/after platform entry.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
The empirical analysis is one product category and one month on JD.com and is explicitly exploratory; the theoretical explanation is conditional rather than causal proof across settings.
Research sources
Publisher abstract specifies the single-category March-2018 JD.com data and reports higher price, demand and profit after entry. Direct publisher-page retrieval was recorded on 2026-10-09; this profile uses publisher metadata/abstract and does not claim independent review of unavailable full text.