Sales mode selection and blockchain adoption decisions of alternative product supply chain under consumer skepticism

Implementing green strategies associated with risks for enterprises, primarily arising from consumer skepticism regarding the green attributes of products and the competitive pressure exerted by traditional products. Considering consumer skepticism and heterogeneous manufacturers compete, we utilize the Stackelberg game to develop blockchain adoption decision models of alternative product supply chain. And we incorporate the commonly observed issue of agency efficiency into the models, capturing the disadvantage of the agency mode relative to the reselling mode in terms of sales and service efficiency. The differences in motivation for green manufacturer (GM) to adopt blockchain under different sales mode, as well as the economic, environmental, and social values of blockchain adoption is investigated. We show that when the agency mode has higher efficiency and the substitutability degree between the two products is lower while the commission rate is higher, the GM and e-commerce platform (EP) will both choose the agency mode. Additionally, the consumer skepticism degree and blockchain adoption cost will affect the preference range of both parties' sales mode. The use of blockchain by GM does not necessarily improve the green design level and his profits, depending on the consumer skepticism degree and the blockchain adoption cost. Interestingly, traditional manufacturer can always benefit from “free-riding” (i.e., leveraging the GM's blockchain investment without bearing the cost), whereas EP doesn't always benefit from this. Meanwhile, only when the substitutability of the two products is smaller and the commission rate is higher, GM is more willing to adopt blockchain in the reselling mode. Moreover, the GM may achieve a “win-win-win” situation in terms of economic, environmental, and social aspects by adopting blockchain.