{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,19]],"date-time":"2026-01-19T10:35:30Z","timestamp":1768818930162,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":34,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,11,20]],"date-time":"2020-11-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1605830400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JTAER"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Although suppliers can sell their goods on e-retailers\u2019 e-platforms through either a wholesale or agency contract, suppliers that produce complementary goods and have different channel roles have been confused as to how to choose an optimal distribution contract. This paper aims to study this problem by considering the combined impacts of suppliers\u2019 channel roles, e-retailer\u2019s referral fees, goods\u2019 differences in the level of complementarity and goods\u2019 differences in potential demand. Our results show that, regardless of one supplier\u2019s distribution contract choice, the other supplier always prefers agency contract, which is independent of two suppliers\u2019 channel roles, the e-retailer\u2019s referral fees, two goods\u2019 differences in the level of complementarity and two goods\u2019 differences in the potential demand. Moreover, when two suppliers use different distribution contracts to sell goods with different levels of complementarity on the same e-retailer\u2019s e-platform, low-complementarity goods have a larger optimal retail price only if the two goods\u2019 differences in the level of complementarity are sufficiently high, and the supplier can obtain more profits by producing low-complementarity goods regardless of the supplier\u2019s distribution contract and channel role.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/jtaer16030028","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,11,23]],"date-time":"2020-11-23T11:50:34Z","timestamp":1606132234000},"page":"445-465","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["Distribution Contract Analysis on e-Platform by Considering Channel Role and Good Complementarity"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Jie","family":"Wei","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2156-8987","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jinghui","family":"Lu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5971-5316","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Weiyu","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0231-4092","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zeling","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Economics and Management, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,11,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2259","DOI":"10.1287\/mnsc.2015.2230","article-title":"Agency selling or reselling? 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