Abstract: The e-commerce retail platform has evolved into a hybrid retail platform where the platform sells through itself-operated channel and the manufacturer sells on consignment. This paper constructs a multi-stage game model based on a hybrid e-commerce retail platform to investigate the promotion game between the e-commerce retail platform and the manufacturer, and to discuss the impact of asymmetric channel potential demand on the decision outcomes. Four scenarios are considered: neither of the e-commerce retail platform and the manufacturer promotes its channel, the manufacturer promotes the consignment channel but the e-commerce retail platform does not, the e-commerce retail platform promotes its self-operated channel but the manufacturer does not, and the two parties both promote their respective operating channels. It is found that promotion for the consignment channel is always the dominant promotion strategy for the manufacturer, regardless of the commission rate of the consignment channel, the intensity of channel competition, and the difference in the potential demand of the channels. The equilibrium promotion strategies between the e-commerce retail platform and the manufacturer depends on the relationship among the commission rate of the consignment channel, the intensity of channel competition, and the difference in potential channel demand. When the intensity of channel competition is low, the difference in potential channel demand does not affect the choice of equilibrium promotion strategy between the e-commerce retail platform and the manufacturer, and both parties will launch promotions for their respective operating channels at the same time. When the intensity of channel competition is high, the choice of equilibrium promotion strategies between the two parties depends on the difference in the potential demand between the two channels. If the potential demand of the consignment channel is small then both parties promote their respective operating channels is still an equilibrium strategy, if the potential demand of the consignment channel is large then the e-commerce retail platform will choose not to promote its own channel. Moreover, the manufacturer can always obtain the highest total profit under the equilibrium promotion strategies, while whether the e-commerce retail platform can obtain the highest total profit under the equilibrium promotion strategies depends on the intensity of channel competition and the manufacturer’s consignment channel potential demand.

Key words: hybrid platform retail supply chain, promotion, pricing, channel competition, asymmetric demand