Modeling the relationship between fairness concern and customer loyalty in dual distribution channel

With the rapid growth of the online market, the e-tailer platform has accumulated loyal consumers, which has caused e-tailers to be more concerned about fairness, especially by paying more attention to manufacturers’ profits earned from the e-commerce platform. We build a dual-channel model and consider whether an e-tailer and manufacturer should be fair minded. We find that the platform will care about fairness only when the proportion of loyal customers is at a medium level. When the proportion of loyal customers is greater, whether e-tailers are fair minded will make no difference. Given that the e-tailer cares about fairness, the manufacturer will also be fair-minded when there is a moderate proportion of loyal customers. When the proportion of loyal customers is greater, the manufacturer will not be fair minded. When only the e-tailer is concerned about fairness, the loyal consumer will be worse off if there is a larger proportion of loyal consumers, and a case where both the e-tailer and manufacturer care about fairness shows the opposite trend. When only the e-tailer is concerned about fairness, the normal consumer will always be better off. When both supply chain members care about fairness, the normal consumer will be worse off if the proportion of loyal consumers is greater.