Optimal pricing decisions for a global fresh product supply chain in the blockchain technology era

ABSTRACT

This paper considers a global fresh product supply chain consisting of an overseas supplier and a local cross-border e-commerce platform, in which the supplier sells fresh products to the platform and then the platform sells them to consumers at the local market. We develop an analytical model to explore the effects of the adoption of blockchain technology (BCT) on the pricing decisions and profits of the supply chain members. The results show that the wholesale price and the retail price may decrease or increase when the supplier adopts BCT, and the adoption of BCT is not always beneficial to both the supplier and the retailer. The supplier should adopt BCT if the real product freshness is at a relatively high level. Furthermore, compared with the supplier, the retailer is more likely to benefit from the adoption of BCT.

KEYWORDS:

• Pricing
• blockchain technology
• fresh product
• global supply chain

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://pixelplex.io/blog/walmart-strives-for-food-safety-using-blockchain/ (Accessed on July, 2021)

2 The proofs are shown in the Appendix.

3 The proofs are shown in the Appendix.

4 The proofs are shown in the Appendix.

5 The proofs are shown in the Appendix.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Numbers 71872075 and 71801121) and the Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 720RC568).