Entry or not? Manufacturers’ product sharing strategy when facing competition

Abstract

Traditional manufacturers can take part in the sharing economy by renting products to consumers through sharing platforms. We develop an analytical framework consisting of two manufacturers and a sharing platform to study the effect of product sharing on competing manufacturers’ entry and pricing strategies. On the one hand, when the high-quality manufacturer works with the sharing platform, if the perceived quality of renting the high-quality product is larger than that of purchasing the low-quality product, it shows that the high-quality manufacturer will benefit and should enter the sharing market when the rental price is moderate. However, if the perceived quality of renting a high-quality product is smaller than that of purchasing a low-quality product, both manufacturers will always suffer losses; thus, the high-quality manufacturer should not provide sharing. Consequently, when the high-quality manufacturer chooses to share, the quality advantage should be maintained. On the other hand, when the low-quality manufacturer works with the sharing platform, it also finds that the low-quality manufacturer will always be better off from a moderate rental price. This implies that the low-quality OEM has more interest in offering product sharing if the perceived quality of renting high-quality product is smaller than that of purchasing low-quality product.