The recent growth of specialized promotion groups has encouraged many firms to shift from self-operated promotion to third-party promotion, including offline-outlet and online-platform promotion. Compared to self-operated promotion, firms adopting third-party promotion can often generate more demand but incur screening costs stemming from the third party's uncertain ability to generate demand. Furthermore, firms applying offline-outlet promotion can benefit from the additional demand created by service effort at physical outlets while simultaneously being affected by another uncertain factor, namely effort level. By capturing these fundamental differences, we develop a specific multistage decision-making model to answer a key question: Which strategy should firms adopt: A self-operated online-platform, or an offline-outlet promotion? We find that a firm's preferences shift from self-operated promotion to offline-outlet promotion and then to online-platform promotion as production quantity increases. Furthermore, decreases in promotional prices make firms more willing to adopt self-operated and online-platform promotion but less willing to adopt offline-outlet promotion. Moreover, we present an interesting insight: The promotion quantity allocated to a low-type third party under online-platform promotion is downward distorted to avoid mimicking the high type, whereas under offline-outlet promotion, the promotion quantity is upward distorted due to the impact of service effort and its incentive mechanism.

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需求生成信息不对称下的促销决策：自营、线上平台和线下门店策略

近期专业推广群体的壮大，促使不少企业从自营推广转向第三方推广，包括线下网点推广和线上平台推广。与自营促销相比，采用第三方促销的公司通常可以产生更多的需求，但由于第三方产生需求的能力不确定，因此会产生筛选成本。此外，应用线下网点促销的公司可以从实体网点服务努力创造的额外需求中受益，同时受到另一个不确定因素的影响，即努力水平。通过捕捉这些基本差异，我们开发了一个特定的多阶段决策模型来回答一个关键问题：公司应该采用哪种策略：自营在线平台，还是线下促销？我们发现，随着生产数量的增加，企业的偏好从自营促销转向线下网点促销，然后再转向在线平台促销。此外，促销价格的下降使企业更愿意采用自营和线上平台促销，但不太愿意采用线下网点促销。此外，我们提出了一个有趣的见解：在线平台促销下分配给低类型第三方的促销数量向下扭曲以避免模仿高类型，而在网点促销下，促销数量向上扭曲由于服务努力的影响及其激励机制。随着产量的增加，消费者的偏好从自营推广转向线下门店推广，再到线上平台推广。此外，促销价格的下降使企业更愿意采用自营和线上平台促销，但不太愿意采用线下网点促销。此外，我们提出了一个有趣的见解：在线平台促销下分配给低类型第三方的促销数量向下扭曲以避免模仿高类型，而在网点促销下，促销数量向上扭曲由于服务努力的影响及其激励机制。随着产量的增加，消费者的偏好从自营推广转向线下门店推广，再到线上平台推广。此外，促销价格的下降使企业更愿意采用自营和线上平台促销，但不太愿意采用线下网点促销。此外，我们提出了一个有趣的见解：在线平台促销下分配给低类型第三方的促销数量向下扭曲以避免模仿高类型，而在网点促销下，促销数量向上扭曲由于服务努力的影响及其激励机制。