Abstract: Store brand strategy has become crucial for e-commerce platforms to gain competitive advantage. This paper explores the impact of pricing sequence on store brand introduction in a supply chain consisting of two competing manufacturers and one e-commerce platform. The results show that store brand introduction has competition effect and pricing effect, and there exists a boundary equilibrium, in which the sales volume of store brand is negligible, but its presence enables the e-commerce platform to enhance the competitiveness of upstream companies and obtain the wholesale price advantage. Moreover, the equilibrium may have a wider range when the e-commerce platform firstly sets retail price. The manufacturer who signs agency selling contract prefers to set retail price first, while the e-commerce platform and the manufacturer who sign reselling contract may have the second-mover advantage. As the fixed cost of introducing store brand increases, the manufacturers' preference for agency sales contracts decreases.

Key words: e-commerce platform, store brand, pricing sequence, competition effect, pricing effect